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1.
Generic sentences (e.g., "Birds lay eggs") convey generalizations about entire categories and may thus be an important source of knowledge for children. However, these sentences cannot be identified by a simple rule, requiring instead the integration of multiple cues. The present studies focused on 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 91) use of morphosyntactic cues--in particular, on whether children can (a) interpret indefinite singular noun phrases (e.g., "a strawberry") as generic and (b) use a verb's tense and aspect (e.g., "A bat sleeps/slept/is sleeping upside down") to determine whether its subject noun phrase is generic. Children demonstrated sensitivity to both cues. Thus, solving the in-principle problem of identifying generics may not be beyond the reach of young children's comprehension skills. 相似文献
2.
These studies investigated two hundred and forty-four 24- and 30-month-olds' sensitivity to generic versus nongeneric language when acquiring knowledge about novel kinds. Toddlers were administered an inductive inference task, during which they heard a generic noun phrase (e.g., "Blicks drink milk") or a nongeneric noun phrase (e.g., "This blick drinks milk") paired with an action (e.g., drinking) modeled on an object. They were then provided with the model and a nonmodel exemplar and asked to imitate the action. After hearing nongeneric phrases, 30-month-olds, but not 24-month-olds, imitated more often with the model than with the nonmodel exemplar. In contrast, after hearing generic phrases, 30-month-olds imitated equally often with both exemplars. These results suggest that 30-month-olds use the generic/nongeneric distinction to guide their inferences about novel kinds. 相似文献
3.
Generic noun phrases (e.g., "Bats live in caves") are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. Past work has found that parents frequently use generic noun phrases in their speech to young children. However, little is known regarding how children understand these expressions, nor which cues signal generic meaning. The present set of 5 studies examined the influence of linguistic form class (e.g., "What color are dogs?" [generic] versus "What color are the dogs?" [nongeneric]) and of pragmatic context (e.g., "What color are they?" in the presence of either a single exemplar [generic] or multiple exemplars [nongeneric]). Participants were 2-year-olds (N = 42), 3-year-olds (N = 40), 4-year-olds (N = 40), and adults (N = 51). The data indicate that by 2 years of age, children use linguistic form class, and by 3 years of age, children use pragmatic context. These findings demonstrate that young children have begun to understand the distinction between generic and nongeneric noun phrases from a very young age, and that identification of generics is signaled not by formal or pragmatic cues alone, but by a combination of information from both language form and pragmatic context. It is suggested that children make use of multiple linguistic and conceptual cues to acquire and interpret generics. 相似文献
4.
1 hypothesis about children's developing conception of the mind is that preschoolers are limited to an understanding that persons have internal, mental contents like thoughts and beliefs, whereas older children and adults conceive of the mind itself as an independent, active structure or processor. Adults' conception of the mind in this independent active fashion seems evident in their use of personified mental metaphor (e.g., "My mind tricked me"). 3 studies examined the development and consolidation of this active, personified view. Study 1 provided an analysis of natural language data regarding 1 child's uses of vision words such as see and look from age 2 1/2 to 8 years. We examined the child's use of such words to refer literally to perception (e.g., "I see the TV") and also to refer nonliterally to active mental processes such as comprehension and inference (e.g., "I see what you mean"). Studies 2 and 3 examined 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds' comprehension and production of mental metaphors. In a metaphor comprehension task, we asked children to interpret personified metaphoric statements about the mind (e.g., "My mind wandered") and 3 comparison domains, mechanics (e.g., "The car is dead"), nature (e.g., "The wind is howling"), and emotion (e.g., "Her heart was smiling"). In an explanation task, we asked children to explain the processes underlying the making of both instant photos and mental images. The findings reveal a developing ability to interpret and produce statements personifying the mind and provide considerable evidence about children's movement toward a conception of the mind as an independent entity deserving reference and conceptualization in its own right. 相似文献
5.
D. Geoffrey Hall 《Child development》1994,65(5):1299-1317
4 experiments examined 3- and 4-year-olds' interpretations of novel words applied to familiar objects in the sentence frame, "This Y is X," where X is a novel word, and Y is a familiar basic-level count noun (e.g., "dog", "cup"). These novel words are ambiguous and could be interpreted either as proper names (e.g., "Fred") or as adjectives/mass nouns (e.g., "red"/"lead"). The experiments addressed 2 questions. First, do children appreciate that the words can be construed either as proper names referring to individuals or as adjectives/mass nouns referring to salient properties/material kinds? The results showed that children could easily make either interpretation. Second, what factors affect children's tendency to make either a proper name or an adjective/mass noun interpretation? In the experiments, children learned the novel words for a range of animals and artifacts. Most children who learned the words for typical pets (e.g., a bird) made proper name interpretations, as did the majority of those who learned the words for certain non-pet animals (e.g., a caterpillar) described as possessed by someone, but only about half of those who learned the words for such non-pet animals not so described. Very few children who learned the words for either simple (e.g., a shoe) or complex (e.g., a boat) artifacts made proper name interpretations. The results provide clear evidence of the role of semantic information in constraining children's interpretation of a novel word, and they help to refine an understanding of what counts as a nameable individual for preschoolers. 相似文献
6.
The distinction between individuals (e.g., Rin-Tin-Tin) and categories (e.g., dogs) is fundamental in human thought. Two studies examined factors that influence when 2- to 3-year-old children and adults focus on individuals versus categories. Mother-child dyads were presented with pictures and toys (e.g., a picture of a boat or a toy boat). Conversations were coded for references to generic categories ("Dogs are furry"), ostensive labels ("This is a dog"), or specific individuals ("Lassie"). Overall, pictures generated more talk about categories; objects generated more talk about individuals. However, when objects could not be manipulated, speakers expressed relatively more category references. These results suggest that representations (in the form of pictures or objects-on-display) encourage young children and parents alike to think about categories. 相似文献
7.
Children acquire general knowledge about many kinds of things, but there are few known means by which this knowledge is acquired. In this article, it is proposed that children acquire generic knowledge by sharing in pretend play. In Experiment 1, twenty-two 3- to 4-year-olds watched pretense in which a puppet represented a "nerp" (an unfamiliar kind of animal). For instance, in one scenario, the nerp ate and disliked a carrot. When subsequently asked generic questions about real nerps, children's responses suggested that they had learned general facts (e.g., nerps dislike carrots). In Experiment 2, thirty-two 4- to 5-year-olds learned from scenarios lacking pretend speech or sound effects. The findings reveal a long overlooked means by which children can acquire generic knowledge. 相似文献
8.
In 2 experiments, 3 1/2-year-old children interpreted a novel count noun (e.g., "This is a murvil") applied to an unfamiliar stuffed animal as referring to a basic-level kind, rather than to a kind that individuates its members by type of situation (context or life-phase). For example, children made interpretations akin to PERSON (a basic-level kind) rather than PASSENGER (a context-restricted kind), and DOG (a basic-level kind) rather than PUPPY (a life-phase-restricted kind). These experiments also document the role of object familiarity (previous knowledge of a basic-level count noun for the animal) and explicit information (about the relevance of the animal's situation) in the learning of count nouns for situation-restricted kinds. We note that children readily learn the meanings of basic-level count nouns through ostensive definitions (e.g., "This is an X"), although ostensive definitions do not distinguish basic-level kinds from situation-restricted kinds. Therefore, we suggest that children make an implicit assumption that a count noun applied to an unfamiliar solid object refers to a basic-level kind of object, and not to a kind that individuates its members by type of situation. We illustrate the importance of this assumption by showing how it bears directly on individuation, and therefore, on quantification (e.g., counting). 相似文献
9.
Emerging Differentiation of Folkbiology and Folkpsychology: Attributions of Biological and Psychological Properties to Living Things 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
John D. Coley 《Child development》1995,66(6):1856-1874
Research suggests that for adults, "folkpsychology" and "folkbiology" represent distinct conceptual domains for reasoning about living things. However, it is not clear whether these domains are distinct for children; past work suggests that the 2 systems are confused until age 10, and that radical theory change accounts for eventual differentiation. To examine this claim, 16 subjects each at ages 6, 8, and adult were shown pictures of predatory and domestic animals and asked whether each animal displayed a variety of biological properties (e.g., has blood) and psychological properties (e.g., can think, can feel angry). Subjects at all ages showed clearly different attribution patterns for biological versus psychological properties. This dissociation of attribution patterns provides evidence that by kindergarten, notions of folkpsychology and folkbiology are sufficiently differentiated to constitute distinct and independent conceptual domains. This in turn suggests that radical theory change regarding living things either occurs prior to the beginning of formal education, or does not explain the development of folkbiological knowledge. 相似文献
10.
《International Journal of Educational Research》2006,45(1-2):85-95
Beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, or what has been termed “personal epistemology”, are related to learning and achievement in complex ways. These beliefs are also differentiated by discipline (e.g., math, science, history) as well as by judgment domains (e.g., personal taste, morality, meaning). This commentary on five articles on the domain specificity of epistemic beliefs outlines the persistent issues in this field of research, including issues of terminology, methodology, and the interrelation of domain specificity and domain generality, and provides an overview of how the authors address these concerns. Also included are directions for future research and educational implications. 相似文献
11.
John Chi Kin Lee Wing Po Lam Yuk Yung Li 《Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education》2003,17(1):41-65
This article first provides an overview of teacher effectiveness and evaluation in Hong Kong. Several studies related to classroom environment and teacher behavior in selected subjects are referenced, as are recent studies of teachers instructional leadership. Finally, the preliminary use of the Revised Classroom Observation Instrument (RCOI) from the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study in three secondary schools is reported. The results from using the RCOI in Hong Kong indicate that some items may be irrelevant in the Hong Kong context (e.g., physical characteristics), while more items may be needed to reflect good teaching in Hong Kong (e.g., questioning skills). In addition, the potential use of teacher profiles to drive staff development and school improvement is explored. 相似文献
12.
Numerical processing has been extensively studied by examining the performance on basic number processing tasks, such as number priming, number comparison, and number line estimation. These tasks assess the innate “number sense,” which is assumed to be the breeding ground for later mathematics development. Indeed, several studies have associated children's performance in these tasks with individual differences in mathematical achievement. To date, however, most of these studies have cross‐sectional designs. Moreover, the few longitudinal studies either use complex tasks (e.g., story problems) or investigate only one of these basic number processing tasks at a time. In this study, we examine the association between the performance of children on several basic number processing tasks and their individual math achievement scores on a curriculum‐based test measured 1 year later. Regression analyses showed that most of the variance in children's math achievement was predicted by nonsymbolic number line estimation performance (i.e., estimating large quantities of dots) and, to a lesser extent, the speed of comparing symbolic numbers. This knowledge about the predictive value of the performance of 5‐ to 7‐year‐olds on these markers of number processing can help with the early identification of at‐risk children. In addition, this information can guide appropriate educational interventions. 相似文献
13.
The concept of emergent "levels" (i.e., levels that arise from interactions of objects at lower levels) is fundamental to scientific theory. In this paper, we argue for an expanded role for this concept of levels in science education. We show confusion of levels (and "slippage" between levels) as the source of many of people's deep misunderstandings about patterns and phenomena in the world. These misunderstandings are evidenced not only in students' difficulties in the formal study of science but also in their misconceptions about experiences in their everyday lives. The StarLogo modeling language is designed as a medium for students to build models of multi-leveled phenomena and through these constructions explore the concept of levels. We describe several case studies of students working in StarLogo. The cases illustrate students' difficulties with the concept of levels, and how they can begin to develop richer understandings. 相似文献
14.
We examined the role of object kind familiarity (i.e., knowledge of a count noun for an object) on preschoolers' sensitivity to the relation between a novel word's form class (adjective or count noun) and its reference (to a material kind-property or to an object kind). We used a forced-choice match-to-target task, in which children learned a word for one object (e.g., a metal cup), and then chose between 2 other objects. One was from the same object kind but a different material kind (with different related properties, such as color and texture; e.g., a white plastic cup); the other was from a different object kind but the same material kind (with the same related properties; e.g., a metal spoon). In Experiment 1, children learned either a count noun (e.g., "This is a zav") or an adjective (e.g., "This is a zav one"). Within each form class, we crossed the familiarity of the referent object kind (familiar and unfamiliar) with the age of the children (2- and 4-year-olds). The principal finding was that in interpreting an adjective, 4-year-olds were more likely to choose the object sharing material kind with the target if the target was familiar than if it was unfamiliar. No such familiarity effect was evident among 2-year-olds. In Experiment 2, we employed a more unambiguously adjectival frame (e.g., "This is a very zav-ish one"), and replicated the results of Experiment 1. We interpret the results in terms of 2 proposed word learning biases: one that learners initially expect any word applied to an unfamiliar object to refer to a (basic-level) kind of object, and a second that learners prefer words to contrast in meaning. We consider several interpretations of the observed age difference. 相似文献
15.
Elena Plante Amy E. Ramage Joël Magloire 《Learning disabilities research & practice》2006,21(1):61-76
How verbal information is processed and recalled appears to be influenced by the structure of the information presented (e.g., unrelated sentences vs. narratives) and the processes the listener uses to encode the information (e.g., verbatim encoding vs. gist extraction). Twenty adults, half with a history of learning disabilities (HLD) and half without (control group) received functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Participants were instructed to listen to narrative passages for either the exact wording or the general meaning of the narratives and respond to questions about the narratives. These conditions were contrasted with listening to randomly arranged sentences. Adults in the HLD group responded to test questions less accurately than the control group. Likewise, the HLD group showed physiological differences during both narrative and sentence processing in comparison to the control group. Both groups showed differences in processing narratives for gist versus verbatim information, which involved activation centered over the right precentral sulcus. The results support the notion that distinct aspects of verbal processing draw differentially on a distributed physiological network and that adults selected for HLD show both behavioral and physiological differences on narrative processing tasks. However, these differences are not necessarily qualitative in nature. 相似文献
16.
Despite the prevalence of bilingualism, language acquisition research has focused on monolingual infants. Monolinguals cannot learn minimally different words (e.g., "bih" and "dih") in a laboratory task until 17 months of age (J. F. Werker, C. T. Fennell, K. M. Corcoran, & C. L. Stager, 2002). This study was extended to 14- to 20-month-old bilingual infants: a heterogeneous sample (English and another language; N = 48) and two homogeneous samples (28 English-Chinese and 25 English-French infants). In all samples, bilinguals did not learn similar-sounding words until 20 months, indicating that they use relevant language sounds (i.e., consonants) to direct word learning developmentally later than monolinguals, possibly due to the increased cognitive load of learning two languages. However, this developmental pattern may be adaptive for bilingual word learning. 相似文献
17.
We investigated whether finger pointing toward picture locations can be used as an external cognitive control tool to guide attention and compensate for the immature cognitive control functions in children compared with young adults. Item and source memory performance was compared for picture‐location pairs that were either semantically congruent (e.g., a cloud presented at the upper half of the screen) or incongruent (e.g., a cloud presented at the lower part of the screen). Contrary to our expectations, pointing had an adverse effect on source memory compared to visual observation only, in both age groups. As expected, superior source memory performance was found for congruent compared to incongruent picture‐locations pairs in both age groups. These findings suggest that pointing toward pictures compared to only viewing may hamper memory, and that congruent picture locations are easier to remember than incongruent ones. 相似文献
18.
In Study 1, English-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds heard a novel adjective used to label one of two objects and were asked for the referent of a different novel adjective. Children were more likely to select the unlabeled object if the two adjectives appeared prenominally (e.g., "a very DAXY dog") than as predicates (e.g., "a dog that is very DAXY"). Study 2 revealed that this response occurred only when both adjectives were prenominal. Study 3 replicated Study 1 with Hebrew-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds, even though in Hebrew both types of adjectives appear postnominally. Preschoolers understand that prenominal adjectives imply a restriction of the reference of nouns, and this knowledge motivates a contrastive pragmatic inference regarding the referents of different prenominal adjectives. 相似文献
19.
20.
The lexical quality hypothesis assumes that skilled readers rely on high quality lexical representations that afford autonomous
lexical retrieval and reduce the need to rely on top-down context. This experiment investigated this hypothesis by comparing
the performance of adults classified on reading comprehension and spelling performance. ‘Lexical experts’, defined by above
average performance on both measures, were compared with individuals who are good readers/poor spellers, poor readers/good
spellers, or poor on both measures. Sentences finishing with a homograph (e.g., She danced all night at the ball) were followed by a probe word and participants had to decide whether it had occurred in the sentence. Critical probe words
were related to either the sentence-congruous or the sentence-incongruous meaning of the homograph (e.g., waltz vs. throw). Lexical experts showed less interference from related probes than the other groups. When the sentences were presented at
fast rates, poorer spellers showed interference for sentence-congruous but not sentence-incongruous probes. However, at slower
presentation rates, all groups showed equivalent interference for both types of probes. The results support the lexical quality
hypothesis by showing that high quality lexical representations, indexed by better spelling, are associated with reduced reliance
on sentence context.
相似文献
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