ERIC Number: EJ1268113
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1551-6709
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Role of Co-Occurrence Statistics in Developing Semantic Knowledge
Unger, Layla; Vales, Catarina; Fisher, Anna V.
Cognitive Science, v44 n9 e12894 Sep 2020
The organization of our knowledge about the world into an interconnected network of concepts linked by relations profoundly impacts many facets of cognition, including attention, memory retrieval, reasoning, and learning. It is therefore crucial to understand how organized semantic representations are acquired. The present experiment investigated the contributions of readily observable environmental statistical regularities to semantic organization in childhood. Specifically, we investigated whether co-occurrence regularities with which entities or their labels more reliably occur together than with others (a) contribute to relations between concepts independently and (b) contribute to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. Using child-directed speech corpora to estimate reliable co-occurrences between labels for familiar items, we constructed triads consisting of a target, a related distractor, and an unrelated distractor in which targets and related distractors consistently co-occurred (e.g., sock-foot), belonged to the same taxonomic category (e.g., sock-coat), or both (e.g., sock-shoe). We used an implicit, eye-gaze measure of relations between concepts based on the degree to which children (N=72, age 4-7 years) looked at related versus unrelated distractors when asked to look for a target. The results indicated that co-occurrence both independently contributes to relations between concepts and contributes to relations between concepts belonging to the same taxonomic category. These findings suggest that sensitivity to the regularity with which different entities co-occur in children's environments shapes the organization of semantic knowledge during development. Implications for theoretical accounts and empirical investigations of semantic organization are discussed.
Descriptors: Semantics, Role, Schemata (Cognition), Language Processing, Taxonomy, Speech Communication, Computational Linguistics, Child Language, Eye Movements, Children, Preschool Children, Correlation, Concept Formation, Environmental Influences, Language Acquisition, Vocabulary, Psycholinguistics, Task Analysis
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www-wiley-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305B040063; BCS1918259
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/9de7p/
Author Affiliations: N/A