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Infants' disambiguation of novel object words
(First Language, 1998-06) Graham, Susan; Dubois, Diane; Baker, Rachel K.
When preschool-aged children are presented with two objects, one familiar and one unfamiliar, and asked for the referent of a novel word, they will consistently map the novel word to the novel object, a tendency called the disambiguation effect. In this study, we examined the relation between vocabulary size and the disambiguation response tendency during late infancy. Sixteen- to 22-month-old infants were presented with a novel object along with two familiar objects and asked to choose the referents of familiar and novel words. The infants who consistently chose the novel object in the presence of a novel word had significantly higher productive vocabularies than those who did not. These two groups, however, did not differ in age or on familiar word trials. These results suggest that emergence of the disambiguation effect in late infancy is related to productive vocabulary size rather than age.