Rapid learning in human infants and children

Lori Markson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Children can learn aspects of the meaning of a new word on the basis of only a few incidental exposures and can retain this knowledge for a long period of time -- a process sometimes described as “fast mapping” (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). Although the ability to quickly form new word-object mappings was originally thought to be specific to the task of word learning, recent studies have found that 2- to 4-year-old children can also learn and remember arbitrary non-lexical information about novel objects (Markson, 1999; Markson & Bloom, 1997). This suggests that preschool children have a broader ability to quickly acquire new, arbitrary information. It is possible, however, that such rapid learning abilities are initially specific to language and are later generalized to other types of knowledge. We are currently addressing this question in a series of ongoing studies (Markson & Spelke, in progress). In one set of studies, we are exploring the fast mapping abilities of 18-month-old children in word and non-word learning contexts. The findings show that 18-month-olds are not only proficient at learning word-object relations, but readily acquire and remember other arbitrary relations, such as properties of objects, as well (Schafer & Plunkett, 1998; Woodward, Markman & Fitzsimmons, 1994). In a second line of work, we are beginning to investigate pre-linguistic infants’ capacity to learn and remember arbitrary mappings between specific objects and their properties. To date, the findings suggest that 7-month-olds can map features of objects after limited exposure, at least in one domain of knowledge. Taken together, the results of the studies described above move us one step closer to understanding whether the human capacity for word learning depends on a mechanism dedicated specifically to language, or results from a broader mechanism for learning and remembering arbitrary information in multiple domains of knowledge.

Carey, S., & Bartlett, E. (1978). Acquiring a single new word. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 15, 17-29.

Markson, L. (1999). Mechanisms of word learning in children: Insights from fast mapping. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Arizona, Tucson.

Markson, L., & Bloom, P. (1997). Evidence against a dedicated system for word learning in children. Nature, 385, 813-815.

Schafer, G., & Plunkett, K. (1998). Rapid word learning by fifteen-month-olds under tightly controlled conditions. Child Development, 69, 309-320.

Woodward, A.L., Markman, E., & Fitzsimmons, C. (1994). Rapid word learning in 13- and 18-month-olds. Developmental Psychology, 30, 553-566.

Markson, Lori

Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

NE20-423, Cambridge, MA  02139, USA

markson@mit.edu