Iconicity is a relationship of resemblance between the form and meaning of a sign. Compelling evidence from diverse areas of the cognitive sciences suggests that iconicity plays a pivotal role in the processing, memory, learning, and evolution of both spoken and signed language, indicating that iconicity is a general property of language. However,…

Metaphor generation is both a creative act and a means of learning. When learning a new concept, people often create a metaphor to connect the new concept to existing knowledge. Does the manner in which people generate a metaphor, via sudden insight (Aha! moment) or deliberate analysis, influence the quality of generation and subsequent learning…

Although statistical learning (SL) has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), less attention has been paid to other fundamental challenges in language acquisition, such as cross-situational word learning. Such investigation is important for determining whether and how SL processes are affected in DD at the word level. In this…

From about 7 months of age onward, infants start to reliably fixate the goal of an observed action, such as a grasp, before the action is complete. The available research has identified a variety of factors that influence such goal-anticipatory gaze shifts, including the experience with the shown action events and familiarity with the observed…

Prior research has shown that people can learn many nouns (i.e., word--object mappings) from a short series of ambiguous situations containing multiple words and objects. For successful cross-situational learning, people must approximately track which words and referents co-occur most frequently. This study investigates the effects of allowing…