Distinctive verbal cues support the learning of tool-use actions in 18- and 24-month-olds

To support imitative learning, adult models often use language to accompany an action demonstration. In light of the mixed evidence on the effect of verbal cues on imitative learning, we investigated the influence of the semantic content of verbal information on 18- and 24-month-olds’ imitative learning. The toddlers (n = 132) observed two tool-use actions on a box, accompanied by verbal input that either did not differentiate between the tools and actions (unspecific condition), or contained pseudo-words for the tools plus either meaningful verbs (meaningful-verb condition, Experiment 1) or pseudo-verbs for the actions (pseudo-verb condition, Experiment 2). At test, toddlers in both the meaningful-verb and pseudo-verb conditions performed more correct first tool-use actions than in the unspecific condition, with no difference between the two age groups or between the meaningful-verb and pseudo-verb conditions. Action learning was thus stronger supported through the presence of distinctive verbal labels for tools and actions rather than through the action labels’ semantic meaning

Words and arbitrary actions in early object categorization: weak evidence for a word advantage

Both words and gestures have been shown to influence object categorization, often even overriding perceptual similarities to cue category membership. However, gestures are often meaningful to infants while words are arbitrarily related to an object they refer to, more similar to arbitrary actions that can be performed on objects. In this study, we examine how words and arbitrary actions shape category formation. Across three conditions (word cue, action cue, word–action cue), we presented infants (N = 90) with eight videos of single-category objects which vary in colour and other perceptual features. The objects were either accompanied by a word and/or an action that is being performed on the object. Infants in the word and action condition showed a decrease in looking over the course of the familiarization phase indicating habituation to the category, but infants in the word–action condition did not. At test, infants saw a novel object of the just-learned category and a novel object from another category side-by-side on the screen. There was some evidence for an advantage for words in shaping early object categorization, although we note that this was not robust across analyses

Temporal dynamics in multimodal word-action-object learning in infancy

This study aimed to investigate the impact of multisensory settings on children's learning of word-object and action-object associations at 12 and 24 months of age. Specifically, we examined whether the temporal alignment of words and actions influenced the acquisition of these associations. To assess learning, we utilized a preferential looking and violation of expectation task. In this task, infants and young children were presented with two distinct word-object and action-object pairings either in a synchronous or sequential manner. Our findings revealed that 2-year-olds demonstrated learning of action-object and word-object associations in the synchronous presentation group, as evidenced by their looking behavior. However, no evidence of learning was found in the younger age group. Interestingly, when exploring potential factors that might influence associative learning, we examined individual differences based on parental reports of children's vocabulary production, as well as measures of infants' word comprehension, production, gesture use, and fine motor skills. However, none of these measures explained the observed word-action-object associative learning in either of the two age groups