Goldilocks Forgetting in Cross-Situational Learning

Given that there is referential uncertainty (noise) when learning words, to what extent can forgetting filter some of that noise out, and be an aid to learning? Using a Cross Situational Learning model we find a U-shaped function of errors indicative of a "Goldilocks" zone of forgetting: an optimum store-loss ratio that is neither too aggressive nor too weak, but just the right amount to produce better learning outcomes. Forgetting acts as a high-pass filter that actively deletes (part of) the referential ambiguity noise, retains intended referents, and effectively amplifies the signal. The model achieves this performance without incorporating any specific cognitive biases of the type proposed in the constraints and principles account, and without any prescribed developmental changes in the underlying learning mechanism. Instead we interpret the model performance as more of a by-product of exposure to input, where the associative strengths in the lexicon grow as a function of linguistic experience in combination with memory limitations. The result adds a mechanistic explanation for the experimental evidence on spaced learning and, more generally, advocates integrating domain-general aspects of cognition, such as memory, into the language acquisition process

Remembering New Words: Integrating Early Memory Development into Word Learning

In order to successfully acquire a new word, young children must learn the correct associations between labels and their referents. For decades, word-learning researchers have explored how young children are able to form these associations. However, in addition to learning label-referent mappings, children must also remember them. Despite the importance of memory processes in forming a stable lexicon, there has been little integration of early memory research into the study of early word learning. After discussing what we know about how young children remember words over time, this paper reviews the infant memory development literature as it relates to early word learning, focusing on changes in retention duration, encoding, consolidation, and retrieval across the first 2 years of life. A third section applies this review to word learning and presents future directions, arguing that the integration of memory processes into the study of word learning will provide researchers with novel, useful insights into how young children acquire new words

Cross-situational learning from ambiguous egocentric input is a continuous process: Evidence using the human simulation paradigm

Recent laboratory experiments have shown that both infant and adult learners can acquire word-referent mappings using cross-situational statistics. The vast majority of the work on this topic has used unfamiliar objects presented on neutral backgrounds as the visual contexts for word learning. However, these laboratory contexts are much different than the real-world contexts in which learning occurs. Thus, the feasibility of generalizing cross-situational learning beyond the laboratory is in question. Adapting the Human Simulation Paradigm, we conducted a series of experiments examining cross-situational learning from children's egocentric videos captured during naturalistic play. Focusing on individually ambiguous naming moments that naturally occur during toy play, we asked how statistical learning unfolds in real time through accumulating cross-situational statistics in naturalistic contexts. We found that even when learning situations were individually ambiguous, learners' performance gradually improved over time. This improvement was driven in part by learners' use of partial knowledge acquired from previous learning situations, even when they had not yet discovered correct word-object mappings. These results suggest that word learning is a continuous process by means of real-time information integration

Understanding preschoolers' word learning success in different scenarios : disambiguation meets statistical learning and ebook reading

Children’s ability to learn new words during their preschool years is crucial for further academic success. Previous research suggests that children rely on different learning mechanisms to acquire new words depending on the available context and linguistic information. To date, there is limited research integrating different paradigms to provide a cohesive view of the mechanisms and processes involved in preschool children’s word learning. We presented 4 year-old children (n = 47) with one of three different novel word-learning scenarios to test their ability to connect novel words to their correspondent referents without explicit instruction to do so. The scenarios were tested with three exposure conditions of different nature: (i) mutual exclusivity–target novel word-referent pair presented with a familiar referent, prompting fast-mapping via disambiguation, (ii) cross-situational–target novel word-referent pair presented next to an unfamiliar referent prompting statistically tracking the target pairs across trials, and (iii) eBook - target word-referent pairs presented within an audio-visual electronic storybook (eBook), prompting inferring meaning incidentally. Results show children succeed at learning the new words above chance in all three scenarios, with higher performance in eBook and mutual exclusivity than in cross-situational word learning. This illustrates children’s astounding ability to learn while coping with uncertainty and varying degrees of ambiguity, which are common in real-world situations. Findings extend our understanding of how preschoolers learn new words more or less successfully depending on specific word learning scenarios, which should be taken into account when working on vocabulary development for school readiness in the preschool years

Implementation of best practices in online learning: A review and future directions

Best practices for helping students learn and retain information have been well established by research in cognitive science (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014; Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). Specifically, repeated testing has been shown in numerous instances to enhance recall. In particular, we know that students retain information best when it has been recalled versus re-studied (Butler, 2010) and rehearsed with delayed (spaced) versus massed presentation (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006), and when the items to be studied and later tested are similarly framed (McDaniel, Wildman, & Anderson, 2012). Although these effects were initially demonstrated in laboratory settings, a number of researchers have shown that they generalize to classroom environments (e.g. Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012) and some have demonstrated their utility in fully online courses as well (McDaniel et al., 2012). However, in multiple studies we have found that implementing some of these best practices using publisher-provided textbook technology supplements (TTS) does not meaningfully improve recall (Bell, Simone & Whitfield, 2015; 2016), at least when these supplements are used “out-of-the-box” in face-to-face courses. We conclude when using TTS in an online environment there is a mismatch between student and faculty goals, in that students are motivated by short-term goals of getting high score of a quiz even if the behaviors used to achieve that score do not enhance long-term recall or generalization of the learned material, which typically are the goals of faculty. We argue that TTS can be reconfigured to reinforce meaningful engagement with the material for all students, regardless of learning history or other individual differences of students (e.g., Gluckman, Vlach & Sandhofer, 2014). Actually, in order to continue to require the purchase of these TTS by students, we should determine whether their use is beneficial to all types of students. A related empirical question is whether recall of factual information in an online environment is correlated with the later ability to use that information in a novel situation (generalizability). Whereas some researchers have found that factual information learned via repeated testing does help students to draw inferences about the implications of those facts in later testing (Butler, 2010), others have failed to find a correlation between testing effects and generalizability of the learned material (Gluckman et al., 2014). The literature on this question is still somewhat small, however, (see Carpenter, 2012, for a brief review) and this is particularly true of investigations involving online learning. In this paper we review the existing literature of the spacing benefit and online learning. We end with a proposal for the need of new research specific to the online environment that manipulates delayed repeated testing and examines whether successful retention of factual information promotes long-term application of that material

Slowing down fast mapping:Redefining the dynamics of word learning

In this article, we review literature on word learning and propose a theoretical account of how lexical knowledge and word use emerge and develop over time. We contend that the developing lexical system is built on processes that support children's in-the-moment word usage interacting with processes that create long-term learning. We argue for a new characterization of word learning in which simple mechanisms like association and competition, and the interaction between the two, guide children's selection of referents and word use in the moment. This in turn strengthens and refines the network of relationships in the lexicon, improving referent selection and use in future encounters with words. By integrating in-the-moment word use with long-term learning through simple domain-general mechanisms, this account highlights the dynamic nature of word learning and creates a broader framework for understanding language and cognitive development more generally

Moving word learning to a novel space: A dynamic systems view of referent selection and retention

Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child’s active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children’s knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory and their complex interaction is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work

Word learning and executive functions in preschool children : bridging the gap between vocabulary acquisition and domain-general cognitive processes

Language development in children depends on domain-specific language mechanisms, biases and domain-general cognitive development (i.e., executive functions [EFs]). Additionally, both language proficiency and EFs underpin new learning and predict academic success and lifelong wellbeing. However, despite the intuitive assumption that EFs are involved in the development of language, the relationship between word-learning abilities and EFs is not fully understood. Therefore, the present thesis addresses this gap by examining novel word learning under three different scenarios integrating three main EF components. The current thesis investigated 1) whether children learn and retain words differently depending on the word-learning scenario, and 2) whether EFs in the non-linguistic domain predict word learning in children. More specifically, the present study assessed the impact of three different word-learning scenarios and EF measurements on novel word learning outcomes in 4-year-old children in Greater Sydney, Australia. Participants were 47 children from diverse language backgrounds, including monolinguals (n= 28) and heterogeneous bilinguals (n=19). The present study demonstrates that 4-year-old children are successful at learning words across three word-learning scenarios: Mutual Exclusivity (ME), Cross Situational Word Learning (CSW)L and an eBook. Crucially, different word-learning scenarios foster different learning outcomes, with eBook reading and disambiguation via ME facilitating rapid and more accurate word learning, while CSWL yielded less success. We conclude that at this crucial age prior to entering formal schooling in Australia, children benefit from contextual information and referential input during the word-learning experience. Four-year-olds easily disambiguate and learn novel label-to-referent associations when presented alongside a familiar referent in virtue of the ME assumption. They also successfully activate attentional resources to detect and learn novel label-to-referent associations among abundant visual and auditory input when listening and observing a colourful eBook. These findings should be considered in early childhood education settings to support lexical acquisition in children. In addition, findings point out a bidimensional structure of EF in 4-year-old children, with one of the dimensions corresponding to a composite construct comprised of inhibition and flexibility, while the other dimension corresponds to working memory. However, our analyses did not reveal visuospatial memory, inhibition or flexibility as significant predictors for any of the word-learning scenarios. Altogether, the present thesis advances the knowledge of children’s cognitive structure and their relationship with different word-learning scenarios, providing foundations to help further bridge the research gap between word learning and cognitive processes

Language learning in aphasia: A narrative review and critical analysis of the literature with implications for language therapy

People with aphasia (PWA) present with language deficits including word retrieval difficulties after brain damage. Language learning is an essential life-long human capacity that may support treatment-induced lan-guage recovery after brain insult. This prospect has motivated a growing interest in the study of language learning in PWA during the last few decades. Here, we critically review the current literature on language learning ability in aphasia. The existing studies in this area indicate that (i) language learning can remain functional in some PWA, (ii) inter-individual variability in learning performance is large in PWA, (iii) language processing, short-term memory and lesion site are associated with learning ability, (iv) preliminary evidence suggests a relationship between learning ability and treatment outcomes in this population. Based on the reviewed evidence, we propose a potential account for the interplay between language and memory/learning systems to explain spared/impaired language learning and its relationship to language therapy in PWA. Finally, we indicate potential avenues for future research that may promote more cross-talk between cognitive neuro-science and aphasia rehabilitation

What does it take to learn a word?

Vocabulary learning is deceptively hard, but toddlers often make it look easy. Prior theories proposed that children’s rapid acquisition of words is based on language-specific knowledge and constraints. In contrast, more recent work converges on the view that word learning proceeds via domain-general processes that are tuned to richly structured—not impoverished—input. We argue that new theoretical insights, coupled with methodological tools, have pushed the field toward an appreciation of simple, content-free processes working together as a system to support the acquisition of words. We illustrate this by considering three central phenomena of early language development: referential ambiguity, fast-mapping, and the vocabulary spurt