Focusing on the relation: fewer exemplars facilitate children's initial verb learning and extension

Developmental Science 11:4 (2008), pp 628– 634
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00707.x
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
PAPER
Focusing on the relation: fewer exemplars facilitate children’s
initial verb learning and extension
Mandy J. Maguire,1 Kathy Hirsh-Pasek,2 Roberta Michnick Golinkoff3
and Amanda C. Brandone4
1. School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas, USA
2. Department of Psychology, Temple University, USA
3. Department of Education, University of Delaware, USA
4. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, USA
Abstract
One of the most prominent theories for why children struggle to learn verbs is that verb learning requires the abstraction of
relations between an object and its action (Gentner, 2003). Two hypotheses suggest how children extract relations to extend a
novel verb: (1) seeing many different exemplars allows children to detect the invariant relation between actions in different
contexts (Gentner, 2003), and (2) repetition of fewer exemplars allows children to move beyond the entities involved to extract
the relation (Kersten & Smith, 2002). We tested 2 1 - and 3-year-olds’ ability to extend a novel verb after viewing the repetition
2
of one novel actor compared to four different actors performing a novel action. Both ages were better at learning and extending
a novel verb to a novel actor when shown only one actor rather than four different actors. These results indicate that during
initial verb learning less information is more effective.
Introduction
verb label to an action that included an instrument
change. For example, if children were taught the label
Any theory of word learning must address not only how
‘bocking’ for cutting clay in half with a spaghetti portioner,
children learn object labels, such as Jim or brick, but
they were less likely than adults to say that ‘bocking’ was
also how they learn to express relations between objects,
an appropriate name for the same action performed with
such as Jim, break the brick or Throw the brick at Jim .
a stone as the clay cutting instrument. Similar findings
In English and many other languages, such relations are
were reported by Forbes and Farrar (1993) when teaching
encoded primarily in verbs and prepositions. Unlike
novel verbs to 3-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults.
nouns, verbs are inherently relational as some agent
Kersten and Smith (2002) further strengthened the
must perform the action, as in intransitive verbs; or
claim that children focus on novel entities to the neglect
some action is performed on an object, as in transitive
of relations in a verb learning context. Using novel actions
verbs. Although relational terms such as verbs are integral
performed by novel or familiar animated characters,
to language, they are harder to learn than object labels
they taught 3- and 4-year-olds new verbs. When the agents
(Gentner, 1982; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006; Imai,
were novel, children attended more to the agents than to
Haryu & Okada, 2005; but see Tardif, 2006). One of the
the action. In contrast, when the agents were familiar
major stumbling blocks for children learning and
children appropriately attended to the action upon hear-
extending new verb labels is their focus on the objects
ing the novel verb. Thus, in the presence of novel agents,
and agents involved in the action to the neglect of the
verb learning is impeded by children’s attention to the
relation between them (Behrend, 1990; Forbes & Farrar,
entities rather than to the actions involved. To date, two
1993; Gentner, 1988; Kersten & Smith, 2002). Here we
distinct positions suggest ways in which children might
investigate how children might overcome this natural
overcome this bias to learn a new verb and extend it to
object bias to appropriately learn and extend a novel
novel contexts.
verb label.
One theory suggests that children require multiple
There is ample support for the claim that children are
different exemplars to learn an action label. According to
biased to attend to objects and agents, even in verb
Gentner (2003) and Smiley and Huttenlocher (1995),
learning situations. Behrend (1990) found that 3- and 5-
children’s initial word meanings are bound to specific
year-olds were less likely than adults to extend a novel
objects and actors. Upon encountering a shared label
Address for correspondence: Mandy J. Maguire, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas, Dallas/Callier Center, 1966 Inwood
Dr., Dallas, TX 75235, USA; e-mail: mandy.maguire@utdallas.edu
© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Facilitating verb extension
629
across exemplars, children make comparisons and then
Work by Quinn and his associates (Quinn, Adams,
uncover the relational commonality to which the label
Kennedy, Shettler & Wasnik, 2003; Quinn, Cummins,
refers. Indeed, there is an abundance of related evidence
Kase, Martin & Weissman, 1996; Quinn, Norris, Pasko,
with object categories that hearing a noun label applied
Schmader & Mash, 1999; Quinn et al., 2002) supports
to a diverse set of instances invites children to form an
this proposal that children’s initial understanding of
abstract object category (Balaban & Waxman, 1997;
relations is specific to particular objects and is only later
Gelman & Coley, 1990; Graham, Kilbreath & Welder,
extended to new objects. For example, research suggests
2004; Liu, Golinkoff & Sak, 2001; Waxman & Klibanoff,
that at 3 months of age, children comprehend the relational
2000).
concepts of above versus below when shown the same
Evidence from natural speech samples indicates that
object multiple times during familiarization and test, but
this may be even more important in the acquisition of
not when shown multiple different objects depicting the
verbs than in the acquisition of nouns (Gallivan, 1987;
relationship. It is not until 6 months that they can
Hoff & Naigles, 2002; Rinaldi, Barca & Burani, 2004;
extract these relations when they are instantiated with
Sandhofer, Smith & Luo, 2000). For example, Gallivan
novel object combinations (Quinn et al., 1996). Similarly,
(1987) found a strong positive correlation between a
the concept of between appears at 6 –7 months with
parent’s production and their child’s production of
familiar objects, but only at 9 –10 months with novel
particular motion verbs. It seems that hearing these
objects (Quinn et al., 2003).
verbs in multiple situations over time speeds the child’s
Casasola (2005) found that repetition of fewer exemplars
ability to correctly use the verb in a natural situation.
also allowed for the extension of relational understanding
When comparing nouns and verbs in terms of parental
to novel object pairs. She habituated 10- and 14-month-
input, Sandhofer et al. (2000) found that both English-
old infants to examples of a support relation (on) with
and Mandarin-speaking parents use very few verbs, but
either two pairs of objects or six pairs (e.g. a stacking cup
repeat them often, while using many different nouns and
and a toy dog). Fourteen-month-olds displayed knowledge
repeating them much more rarely. Similar patterns of
of the spatial category with novel objects only in the two-
adult input speech have been reported in Italian (Rinaldi
exemplar condition. Younger children and those in the
et al., 2004). Thus, it seems necessary for children to see
six-exemplar condition did not show this effect. Showing
multiple instantiations of an action with a common label
fewer objects multiple times appears to allow infants to
to correctly abstract and extend a novel verb.
familiarize themselves sufficiently with the items so as to
Experimental studies have also shown that viewing
move beyond the particular objects to attend to the
many rather than fewer instances facilitates the formation
relation between those objects.
of nonlinguistic relational categories (Bomba & Siqueland,
Thus, research on relational category formation suggests
1983; Gomez, 2002). For example, Bomba and Siqueland
that children do best in abstracting and extending relational
(1983) found that 3- and 4-month-old infants acquired
categories when fewer novel objects are shown multiple
an abstract spatial relation more easily when familiarized
times in the target relation (Casasola, 2005; Casasola &
with 12 than with six exemplars of that relation. From
Cohen, 2002; Kersten & Smith, 2002; Quinn et al., 2002).
this perspective, viewing many exemplars may help to
Furthermore, one theory of language acquisition, the
direct attention to the relational commonality and away
‘less is more’ theory (Newport, 1990), is consistent with
from the elements forming the relation. The same logic
the notion that restriction of information is useful for
could hold in the process of learning a novel relational
getting language off the ground. It stands to reason that
action label: viewing multiple different exemplars may
verb learning might follow a similar pattern. However,
highlight the common relation beyond the individual
there is equally convincing data indicating that multiple
agents or objects.
exemplars are necessary for relational understanding
A second position, however, suggests that children
and verb acquisition (Bomba & Siqueland, 1983; Gentner,
extract relational categories more effectively with repetition
2003; Gomez, 2002; Smiley & Huttenlocher, 1995). To
of a limited number of exemplars . Based on literature on
date, it remains an open question as to whether children
nonlinguistic relational category formation, Casasola
are aided or hindered by seeing many novel exemplars in
(2005) and others (Casasola & Cohen, 2002; Kersten &
a verb learning task. Here we address this question with
Smith, 2002; Quinn, Polly, Furer, Dobson & Narter,
children who are 2 and 3 years of age.
2002) have argued that before infants learn to attend to
a relation between objects, they attend to the objects
composing that relation. With repeated exposure, how-
Method
ever, infants’ attention can move to the relation between
the objects and eventually infants can learn to abstract
Participants
the relation independent of the specific objects. On this
view, because infants are biased toward objects in
There were two age groups, 30–32 months of age (M =
processing relations, limiting the number of objects used
31.42, SD = .90) and 36–38 months (M = 37.49, SD =
to instantiate a relation should benefit infants more than
.92), primarily Caucasian, drawn from a suburban area
presenting multiple exemplars.
(n = 78). Participants were removed due to experimenter
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630
Mandy J. Maguire et al.
Table 1 Training and test phases (multiple exemplars condition)
Video display
Trial
Script
Left
Center
Right
Center
Now watch blicking!
Baby
+Training: A1
Blicking! Do you see her blicking? Watch her blicking.
Actress 1: Action A
Center
We’re going to see more blicking!
Baby
Training: A2
Hey, Blicking! Do you see her blicking? Watch her blicking.
Actress 2: Action A
Center
More blicking!
Baby
Training: A3
Look! She’s blicking! Watch her blicking! She’s blicking!
Actress 3: Action A
Center
We’re going to see more blicking!
Baby
Training: A4
Wow! More blicking! She’s blicking. Watch her blicking!
Actress 4: Action A
Center
Find blicking!
Baby
Test: A1
Point to the girl who’s blicking. Can you point to the one
Actress 5: Action A
Actress 6: Action B
who’s blicking?
Center
Find blicking again!
Baby
*Test: A2
Point to the girl who’s blicking. Can you point to the one
Actress 5: Action A
Actress 6: Action B
who is blicking?
+ For the One Exemplar condition, the visual images of Training Trials 2– 4 are identical to Training Trial 1. The script is identical to the one above.
* After completion of this section the training is continued with new actions and a new label (‘hirshing’) used in the identical script followed by Test B1 and Test B2.
error (10) and fussiness or failure to complete the task
Between each 6-second training clip and each 6-second
(four), leaving 32 (16 males; 16 females) children in each
test clip was a 3-second ‘centering’ clip showing a smiling
age group.
baby’s face in the center of the television screen. This
clip was designed to reorient children’s attention to the
center of the screen between test trials. The novel verb was
Apparatus
introduced prior to (and following) each training trial.
Participants saw a 34 × 26 inch television and two digital
During the pointing practice phase, children were trained
cameras balanced on either side of the TV. One camera
to point in response to the experimenter’s questions.
served as a videotape player feeding the video stimuli to
This included two items with familiar objects (e.g. truck,
the television, while the other was used to record the
cow) and one with familiar actions (dancing, drinking).
participant’s responses. The participant sat alone in a
Children were permitted to fail only one of these three
chair 72 inches in front of the center of the television
practice trials before being removed from the study;
with the experimenter directly behind the chair. From
no child was discarded from the sample for this reason.
this spot, the experimenter recorded the child’s pointing
The location of the correct response (left or right) was
responses during the 1 min 13 sec experiment. All
counterbalanced within and between children.
participants’ responses were videotaped allowing for 10%
In training phase A , participants were given a novel
of randomly selected videos to be coded offline by a
label for a novel action that took up the whole screen
blind coder. Reliability for online and offline coding was
and was performed by a female actress. Four 6-second
100%.
training trials were each separated by a 3-second centering
trial. The appearance of the action was accompanied by
the experimenter labeling, ‘Look, she’s blicking! Do you
Materials and procedure
see her blicking? Watch her blicking!’ Each 6-second clip
The stimuli were digital movies created using Adobe
was labeled three times following a fixed script. The key
Premiere 6.5. There were four whole body actions per-
manipulation was the number of different exemplars
formed by female actresses. Actions were intransitive
the child saw during training. In the multiple exemplar
with the belief that these, although relational in nature
condition, children saw four different female actresses
(Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001), might be easier for children
performing the same action for 6 seconds each; in the
to acquire than transitive action labels. Children were
single exemplar condition, a video clip of one actress
randomly assigned to either the single or multiple exemplar
(randomly selected from the multiple exemplar condition)
condition. Both conditions were identical except for the
was repeated four times. The target action was counter-
visual display during the training session.
balanced across conditions.
All auditory stimuli were presented in infant-directed
Test phase A was the same regardless of training
speech by a female experimenter who stood behind the
condition. Its purpose was to determine whether the child
child. The experiment contained six phases: centering
had learned the name for the novel action and could
and pointing practice, followed by training A, test phase A,
extend it to a novel actor. The video display was a split
training B, and test phase B (see Table 1). The logic of
screen showing two novel actresses each performing
the design was to teach participants a novel label for a
different actions. One side of the screen displayed the target
novel action and then test for label extension.
action from training; the other showed a novel action.
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Facilitating verb extension
631
As the video appeared, the experimenter asked the child,
‘Who is blicking? Point to her blicking. Can you find her
blicking?’ and then recorded the child’s response (Test A1).
This trial was then repeated a second time (Test A2).
The side on which the match appeared was counterbal-
anced across and within children.
Training and test phases B were identical to training
phase A but with a third novel action, new actresses, and
another novel label (‘hirshing’) given in the same syntactic
frames as above. As in testing phase A, in testing phase
B the children saw two new actresses, one performing
the target action and the other performing a different
novel action. They were asked, ‘Who is hirshing? Point
Figure 1 Percentage of participants extending the target
to her hirshing’, etc. The test trial was then repeated.
action label correctly.
Thus, phase B was simply a replication of phase A with
a second set of actions.
Table 2 Results by condition and age group and by condition
and test trials
Results
Percent correct
Percent correct
one actor
multiple actors
Which responses were analyzed?
30 –32 mo.
62.5 (SD = .50)
43.8 (SD = .51)
36 –38 mo.
81.3 (SD = .40)
50.0 (SD = .52)
Responses were considered correct if the child pointed at
Test A1
93.6 (SD = .25)
75.0 (SD = .44)
the target action performed by a new agent when it was
Test B1
86.7 (SD = .35)
67.7 (SD = .48)
requested by name. Many children (33%) did not con-
sistently give the same responses in test A1 and test A2
or test B1 and test B2, despite the fact that the video and
a priori assumptions about which condition would be
questions were identical. Our interpretation is that even
easier for children. The results show the percentage of
at 31 months, children are sensitive to the conversational
children passing the task was significantly above chance
implication of asking the same question twice and that
(25%) when given one exemplar, t(31) = 5.81, p < .001,
participants assumed they were asked for a second
and when given multiple exemplars, t(31) = 2.44, p = .02.
response because their first response did not satisfy. For
Confirming that this finding was not carried by one age
these reasons, only the data from test trials A1 and B1
group or test trial, Table 2 indicates that the ability to
are reported. Note that with a pointing task, a child may
extend a label more effectively after seeing one exemplar
achieve a correct response by chance 50% of the time.
four times compared to four different exemplars was
For this reason, children were reported as passing the
robust across age group and test trial.
task if they pointed to the correct action in both tests A1
and B1, reducing chance to 25%.
Discussion
Were children able to map and extend the new
The purpose of the current experiment was to adjudicate
action name?
between two views on the mechanisms that allow children
A 2 (sex: male, female) × 2 (condition: single versus
to abstract and label relations. On the one hand, Gentner
multiple exemplars) × 2 (age group: 31-month-olds,
(2003) and Smiley and Huttenlocher (1995) suggested
36-month-olds) ANOVA on the percentage of correct
that children need to see multiple exemplars of a target
responses revealed no significant sex or age group differ-
action to extract the relational features encoded in a
ences (all ps > .30). There was, however, a significant effect
particular verb. On the other hand, research in relational
of condition, F(1, 62) = 4.29, p < .05. As depicted in
category formation has shown that young children are
Figure 1 children were significantly more likely to
aided in extracting relational categories with fewer
correctly extend a label when there was one actor (72%,
exemplars (Casasola, 2005) or when familiar items are
SD = .46) than when there were multiple actors (47%
used to instantiate the relation (Quinn et al., 1999, 2002,
correct, SD = .51).
2003; Kersten & Smith, 2002). The results here support
the findings from the latter perspective: children were
significantly better at mapping and extending a novel
Were children’s extensions above chance levels?
verb label when they were shown fewer rather than many
Because there were no significant age differences the
exemplars. As in Casasola (2005) and Quinn’s work
results from both age groups were collapsed. A two-tailed
(Quinn et al., 1999, 2002, 2003; Kersten & Smith, 2002)
one-sample t-test was performed because there were no
on relational category formation, too much variability in
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632
Mandy J. Maguire et al.
early exposures hindered children’s ability to abstract
forming an initial representation – a conjecture supported
and attach a label to relations in an action.
by the results here. Initial, narrow meanings may be
It is important to note that in both conditions children
crucial in forming a solid mental representation of a
were above chance levels in their ability to extend the
relation before children can extend the boundaries of the
novel label. However, there were significant differences
relational category to nonhuman entities, and even
between the two conditions. In fact, 25% more children
metaphorically to inanimate objects.
were able to reliably extend the label to the novel exemplar
The notion that relational words, or specifically verb
in the single exemplar condition. Thus, this is a significantly
meanings, start narrow and gradually broaden is a
more effective way for children to learn a novel verb
common argument. This argument is made both in terms
label at ages 2 and 3 years. Why might this be the case?
of narrowly extending verb syntactic structures (Akhtar
We suggest that, as proposed by Casasola (2005) and
& Tomasello, 1997; Tomasello, 1992; Tomasello, Brooks
others (Casasola & Cohen, 2002; Kersten & Smith, 2002;
& Stern, 1998; Sandhofer et al., 2000) and in learning
Quinn et al., 2002) concerning nonlinguistic relational
verb labels (Behrend, 1990; Forbes & Farrar, 1993;
category formation, by seeing multiple instances of the
Maguire, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006). For example,
same exemplar, children in the single actor condition
Behrend (1990) and Forbes and Farrar (1993) demon-
were given the opportunity to gain greater familiarity
strated that initial verb meanings are quite specific for
with the actor instantiating the relation, thereby enabling
children compared to adults. In fact, Smiley and Hutten-
them to focus more attention on the action relation itself.
locher (1995) argued that children construe some verb
This greater attention to the action relation during training
meanings so narrowly that they initially limit labels to
resulted in more effective verb learning and superior
actions only they themselves perform, taking up to a
performance in the single exemplar condition.
month to extend to other agents.
If 2 1 - and 3-year-old children benefit from viewing
Children will need to see many more exemplars of an
2
fewer exemplars, might this trend be stronger for younger
action to acquire an adult-like concept of a verb’s meaning.
children? In previous work (Maguire, Meyers & Salkind,
Perhaps even in this paradigm, children would have
2003), 24- to 26-month-olds completed the identical
learned a verb label with multiple exemplars as con-
study as a preferential looking task. Here, visual fixation
sistently as in the single exemplar condition had they been
towards the target action (the correct extension) was
given an opportunity to directly compare the exemplars
measured as the dependent variable instead of pointing.
to find the commonality. While past research indicates
This paradigm has proven successful for testing young
that comparisons help in abstracting relations (Behrend,
children’s verb comprehension in multiple studies (Forbes
1995; Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001), this kind of oppor-
& Poulin-Dubois, 1997; Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, Cauley &
tunity is not common in real-world verb learning
Gordon, 1987; Maguire, Hennon, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff,
situations. Rarely do children see two agents side by side
Slutzky & Sootsman, 2002; Naigles, 1997). In this case
performing the same action as it is labeled. Instead, it is
we found that, unlike their peers of only 6 months older,
more likely that children have to hold a representation in
younger participants were unable to correctly extend the
memory for an extended time period and compare each
label in either the one actor or multiple actors conditions.
new instance to their mental representation of a similar
Thus, previous research does not support the hypothesis
event. Although our time delay of 3 seconds between
that the benefit of viewing fewer exemplars is even
exemplars is arguably much less than children usually
stronger for younger children. Rather, results suggest
experience, it forces children to compare instances to a
that the extraction of the relation between an agent and
stored mental representation to abstract commonalities.
an action is a difficult task. As much prior work suggests
In conclusion, the present results suggest that fewer
(e.g. Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006), the development of
exemplars aid in initial verb learning as compared to
verb concepts takes years to master, not becoming adult-
multiple exemplars. Once a solid representation of a labeled
like until quite late compared to object concepts.
action is available and the child has a stored mental
What kind of action concept did children acquire in
representation against which to compare subsequent
the single actor condition of the current experiments?
exemplars, the child can begin to stretch the boundaries
The representation created with such limited exposure
of their relational category. To gain an adult-like repre-
is likely much narrower than the range of instances a
sentation of a verb, the child will require multiple
verb covers. For example, children may have interpreted
exemplars; but, initially, too much information is more
‘blicking’ narrowly as a young Caucasian woman per-
of a hindrance than a help in verb learning.
forming the target action. In adult vocabularies, however,
verbs apply to a wide range of the same actions performed
by different entities and in variable ways. For example,
Acknowledgements
‘running’ is running whether the agent is your brother,
an Olympian, Grandma, or the family dog. ‘Running’
This research was part of the first author’s dissertation
can even apply to inanimate objects like the refrigerator
at Temple University, and was funded by NSF Grants
or one’s car. For this reason, limited variability in the
SBR9601306 and SBR9615391 and NICHD Grant
exemplars labeled by a verb may be quite important for
HD0501990182 to the second and third authors. We also
© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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633
thank Meredith Meyer, Shannon Pruden, and others for
Gomez, R.L. (2002). Variability and detection of invariant
help in data collection and analysis.
structure. Psychological Science, 13, 431– 436.
Graham, S.A, Kilbreath, C.S., & Welder, A.N. (2004). Thirteen-
month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for
inductive inferences. Child Development, 75, 409 – 427.
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