Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify variability in word-learning mechanisms used by late-talking children using a longitudinal study design, which may explain variability in late-talking children's outcomes. Method: A cohort of typically developing children (n = 40) and children who were classified as late-talking children at age 2;0…

Natural language contains many examples of sound-symbolism, where the form of the word carries information about its meaning. Such systematicity is more prevalent in the words children acquire first, but arbitrariness dominates during later vocabulary development. Furthermore, systematicity appears to promote learning category distinctions, which…

Mutual exclusivity (ME) refers to the assumption that there are one-to-one relations between linguistic forms and their meanings. It is used as a word-learning strategy whereby children tend to map novel labels to unfamiliar rather than familiar referents. Previous research has indicated a relation between ME and vocabulary development, which…

Learning word-referent mappings is complex because the word and its referent tend to co-occur with multiple other words and potential referents. Such complexity has led to proposals for a host of constraints on learning, though how these constraints may interact has not yet been investigated in detail. In this paper, we investigated interactions…

Recent research has demonstrated that systematic mappings between phonological word forms and their meanings can facilitate language learning (e.g., in the form of sound symbolism or cues to grammatical categories). Yet, paradoxically from a learning viewpoint, most words have an arbitrary form-meaning mapping. We hypothesized that this paradox…

Neglect is an acquired cognitive disorder characterized by a lack of processing of one side of a stimulus or representational space. There are hemispheric asymmetries in its cause and in its effects, but implemented computational models of neglect have tended not to incorporate this fact. The authors report a series of neural network simulations…