Category-based induction is a hallmark of mature cognition; however, little is known about its origins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that category-based induction is related to semantic development. Computational studies suggest that early on there is little differentiation among concepts, but learning and development lead to increased…

In the world, the manners and paths of motion events take place together, but in language, these features are expressed separately. How do infants learn to process motion events in linguistically appropriate ways? Forty-six English-learning 7- to 9-month-olds were habituated to a motion event in which a character performed both a manner and a…

Preschool children judged the larger of pairs of stimuli. Three-year olds responded with above-chance accuracy, while 4- and 5-year olds defined "big" as "tall." (ST)

Two predictions based on H. Clark's and E. Clark's hypotheses of the acquisition of word meanings were tested: (1) when learning words which have both spatial and temporal meanings, children will understand the spatial meanings first, and (2) children understand the positive member of an antonym word pair before they understand the negative…

The importance of actions, results, and instruments in the development of verb concepts was examined in four studies. Studies are discussed in terms of theory and research on conceptual development, word learning strategies, and the semantic organization of nouns and verbs. (PCB)

Investigated the interpretation of the word "big" by 40 children of 3 to 5 years. The type and orientation of objects used in the study were varied. Results demonstrated that contextual factors influenced children's responses. (RJC)

Presents a study which assessed preschool children's understanding of "front,""back," and "side" through a variety of tasks. A developmental sequence is defined. (ED)

Compares two types of semantic development (the acquisition of disappearance words and success-failure words) to performance on two types of cognitive tasks (object-permanence and means-ends tasks) among infants. (HOD)

Results indicate that curvilinear trend in children's understanding of word "big" is not obtained in all stimulus contexts. This suggests that meaning and use of "big" is complex, and may not refer simply to larger objects in a set. Proposes that meaning of "big" constitutes a dynamic system driven by many perceptual,…

Comparison between relational concepts and word definitions coincided with lower levels of thinking, and abstract definitions with the highest level. (Author)

Younger and older children were asked to label pictures of nonprototypic, container-like objects in an effort to test Nelson's theory regarding the primacy of the functional core in young children's meaning structures. Contrary to expectations, the older, intermediate age children were influenced more by functional context than were the younger,…

Two experiments examine use of defining, characteristic, category, and identical semantic features of word concept information in cued recall. College adults and 7- to 11-year-old children were shown word triplets in which context words were related or unrelated to final target word. Results suggest meaning features differ in providing medium for…