Catharine H. Echols

A perceptually-based model of children's earliest productions.

A model is proposed to account for processes underlying the initial extraction and representation of words. The model incorporates perceptual salience into a framework provided by autosegmental phonology. In one study, predictions of the model were tested in a corpus of utterances obtained from three children in the one-word speech period. Analyses of the corpus supported the predictions, suggesting that salience of elements such as stressed and final syllables may contribute to the form of early productions and, specifically, to the form of utterances containing filler syllables and full or partial reduplications. Because the data for this study were childrens productions, and the model concerns childrens representations, a second study was carried out to investigate representations somewhat more directly. That study also explored the possible influence of an additional prosodic factor on the form of early words. A word-learning task with 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds and adults assessed whether children would attend to stress pattern or segmental sequence in identifying the referent for a word. As expected, children did rely on prosody in their word choices far more frequently than did adults, suggesting that one prosodic component, stress pattern, may in some cases be prominent in a childs representation for a word. The results of the two studies provide support for the utility of the autosegmental framework, as well as additional evidence for the perceptual salience of stressed and final syllables and of stress pattern.

Stressed and Word-Final Syllables in Infant-Directed Speech

Abstract Comparisons between infant-directed and adult-directed speech were conducted to determine whether word-final syllables are highlighted in infant-directed speech. Samples of adult-directed and infant-directed speech were collected from 8 mothers of 6-month-old and 8 mothers of 9- month-old infants. Mothers were asked to label seven objects both to an experimenter and to their infant. Duration, pitch, and amplitude were measured for whole words and for each of the target word syllables. As in prior research, the infant-directed targets were higher pitched and longer than adult-directed targets. The results also extend beyond previous results in showing that lengthening of final syllables in infant-directed speech is particularly exaggerated. Results of analyses comparing word-final versus nonfinal unstressed syllables in utterance-medial position in infant-directed speech showed that lengthening of unstressed word-final syllables occurs even in utterance-internal positions. These results could suggest a mechanism for proposals that word-final syllables are perceptually salient to young children.

The Influence of Speaker Reliability on First versus Second Label Learning.

Childrens confidence in their own knowledge may influence their willingness to learn novel information from others. Twenty-four-month-old childrens (N = 160) willingness to learn novel labels for either familiar or novel objects from an adult speaker was tested in 1 of 5 conditions: accurate, inaccurate, knowledgeable, ignorant, or uninformative. Children were willing to learn a second label for an object from a reliable informant in the accurate, knowledgeable, and uninformative conditions; children were less willing to apply a novel label to a familiar object if the speaker previously was inaccurate or had expressed ignorance. However, when the objects were novel, children were willing to learn the label regardless of the speakers knowledge level.

Structural Priming as Structure-Mapping: Children Use Analogies From Previous Utterances to Guide Sentence Production

What mechanisms underlie childrens language production? Structural priming--the repetition of sentence structure across utterances--is an important measure of the developing production system. We propose its mechanism in children is the same as may underlie analogical reasoning: structure-mapping. Under this view, structural priming is the result of making an analogy between utterances, such that children map semantic and syntactic structure from previous to future utterances. Because the ability to map relationally complex structures develops with age, younger children are less successful than older children at mapping both semantic and syntactic relations. Consistent with this account, 4-year-old children showed priming only of semantic relations when surface similarity across utterances was limited, whereas 5-year-olds showed priming of both semantic and syntactic structure regardless of shared surface similarity. The priming of semantic structure without syntactic structure is uniquely predicted by the structure-mapping account because others have interpreted structural priming as a reflection of developing syntactic knowledge.

Developmental differences in the relative weighing of informants' social attributes.

We examined whether similarity, familiarity, and reliability cues guide childrens learning and whether these cues are weighed differently with age. Three- to 5-year-olds (n = 184) met 2 informant puppets, 1 of which was similar (Experiment 1) or familiar (Experiment 2) to the participants. Initially, childrens preference for either informant was measured. Children selected similar and familiar informants--over dissimilar and unfamiliar ones--as information sources at above-chance levels. In Experiment 1 the similar informant later provided accurate or inaccurate information (counterbalanced). Childrens initial preference for similar sources was modified by reliability cues. However, 5-year-olds continued to be influenced by similarity, being less likely to avoid inaccurate sources if similar than dissimilar. In Experiment 2 the familiar informant was later portrayed as interpersonally similar or dissimilar (counterbalanced). Only 5-year-olds were influenced by similarity, preferentially interacting with similar informants regardless of familiarity. These results suggest that similarity influences childrens learning and that childrens relative weighing of social cues varies with age--with younger children being especially focused on familiarity and older children being particularly attentive to similarity.

Children’s explicit assessments of reliability influence their willingness to learn novel labels

This study examined how explicitly evaluating another persons performance influences 3.5-year-old childrens willingness to learn from that person. Children interacted with a speaker who presented a series of familiar objects and labeled them either accurately or inaccurately. After establishing reliability, the speaker taught nonsense labels for two additional familiar objects. Half of the children were asked to explicitly judge whether the speaker was reliable before the novel labels were presented; half were asked to do so at the end of the experiment. Children who were given an opportunity to verbally assess the speakers accuracy prior to label learning were more likely than those evaluating afterward to avoid learning from the previously inaccurate labeler. These findings show that explicitly evaluating their knowledge can reduce childrens willingness to learn words from an unreliable source, expanding on prior research showing influences of explicit evaluations on childrens problem solving.

Causal Clarity Prevents the Emergence of Social Biases in Children’s Excusing of Mistakes

ABSTRACT In two studies, we examined how 5-year-olds weigh similarity against other factors in deciding from whom to learn. Specifically, we examined the factors of history of and reasons for inaccuracy in Experiment 1 (n = 64) and of competence and authority in Experiment 2 (n = 32). In the 1st phase of Experiments 1 and 2, children’s social biases were tested: 5-year-olds met both a similar informant (SI) and a dissimilar informant (DI). These informants were puppets (Experiment 1) or human teachers (Experiment 2). Children could select either informant as a source of object names. Across experiments children systematically preferred learning from the SI over DI. In the 2nd phase of Experiment 1, both informants first provided accurate information and then 1 of them became inaccurate during an event that clearly explained (being blindfolded) or did not explain (wearing a scarf) the inaccuracy. For half the children, the SI was accurate and the DI was inaccurate. Only after inaccuracy events that were causally unclear did children showcase similarity biases in their subsequent learning preferences. Experiment 2 showed that identifying a DI as a teacher (a profession associated with positive attributes) failed to counter children’s similarity bias. These findings provide important insights on contextual factors that contribute to children’s favoring of socially meaningful others.

Non-native language exposure promotes children’s willingness to accept labels in two languages

ABSTRACT Bilingualism has been associated with a range of cognitive and language-related advantages, including the recognition that words can have different labels across languages. However, most previous research has failed to consider heterogeneity in the linguistic environments of children categorized as monolingual. Our study assessed the influence of non-native language experience on children’s acceptance of labels in 2 languages. In a continuous measure of language exposure, parents reported the number of hours during which their children heard non-English languages from different sources. English-speaking 5-year-olds (N = 73) were presented with novel labels in English and Spanish for unfamiliar objects and were asked to endorse either or both labels. Children with greater exposure to non-English languages were more likely than less-exposed children to endorse both the English and Spanish labels. The findings suggest that monolingual children’s willingness to learn non-native vocabulary can be enhanced by exposure to non-native languages.