Semantic priming supports infants' ability to learn names of unseen objects.

ABSTRACT: Human language permits us to call to mind representations of objects, events, and ideas that we cannot witness directly, enabling us to learn about the world far beyond our immediate surroundings. When and how does this capacity emerge? To address this question, we evaluated infants at 12 and 15 months, asking whether they establish a representation of a novel noun's meaning in the absence of any visible referents, and use this representation to identify a candidate referent when it later becomes available. During training, infants (67 12-month-olds; 67 15-month-olds) were primed with words and images of objects from a particular semantic neighborhood (e.g., fruits) and were also introduced to a novel noun (e.g., "a modi"), used to name a hidden object. During test, infants heard that noun

SUBMITTER: Luchkina E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12017536 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature