This conclusion is supported by a selective review of these influences. We cannot separate the effects of so-called constraints or biases from a wide range of cognitive and contextual influences on children's inferences about novel word meanings. Defining constraints as innate and domain-specific does not remedy this problem. An analysis shows that the concept constraint is not informative because it does not differentiate a circumscribed set of word learning behaviors. Researchers have argued that specialized lexical constraints cause children to make some inferences about word meanings before others. Constraints are broadly described as “any factor that favors some possibilities over others” (Medin et al., 1990). It is often asserted that young children's word learning is guided by constraints or internal biases.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |