Sound symbolism refers to associations between language sounds and certain perceptual or semantic properties. One well-studied example is the maluma/takete effect, in which individuals tend to associate round-sounding nonwords like maluma with round shapes, and spiky-sounding nonwords like takete with spiky shapes. This phenomenon suggests that…

How do children succeed in learning a word? Research has shown robustly that, in ambiguous labeling situations, young children assume novel labels to refer to unfamiliar rather than familiar objects. However, ongoing debates center on the underlying mechanism: Is this behavior based on lexical constraints, guided by pragmatic reasoning, or simply…