Nonverbal Action Interpretation Guides Novel Word Disambiguation in 12-Month-Olds.

ABSTRACT: Whether young infants can exploit sociopragmatic information to interpret new words is a matter of debate. Based on findings and theories from the action interpretation literature, we hypothesized that 12-month-olds should distinguish communicative object-directed actions expressing reference from instrumental object-directed actions indicative of one's goals, and selectively use the former to identify referents of novel linguistic expressions. This hypothesis was tested across four eye-tracking experiments. Infants watched pairs of unfamiliar objects, one of which was first targeted by either a communicative action (e.g., pointing) or an instrumental action (e.g., grasping) and then labeled with a novel word. As predicted, infants fast-mapped the novel words onto the targeted objects afte

SUBMITTER: Pomiechowska B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9692059 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature