PURPOSE This study examined learning via perception, learning via production, and semantic depth as contributors to word learning in preschool-aged children. There is broad evidence that semantic depth is an important contributor to word learning, especially when semantic cues are repeated and spaced out over time. Perceptual learning and production learning each support word learning sometimes, but not in all cases. The purpose of this study was to examine all three learning mechanisms within a single experimental paradigm. METHOD Thirty-six typically developing preschool children completed the experiment. They were familiarized with 16 novel words that were contextualized as alien names. These aliens came in four sets, each set comprising one base alien and three modified aliens marked by suffixes. Children completed four familiarizations: two in which they simply listened to the alien names (perceptual learning) and two where they repeated the alien names (production learning). Those conditions were crossed with a semantic depth manipulation (aliens with and without verbal semantic cues). Following each familiarization, referent identification and confrontation naming tasks were completed to assess learning. RESULTS Children were able to identify more alien referents following familiarizations with semantic depth. There were no significant effects of either perceptual learning or production learning. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms and expands on the benefits of semantic depth, but the results are unclear about the relative importance of perception and production to word learning. Nevertheless, the study suggests benefits to simultaneously studying multiple factors related to word learning.

中文翻译：

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口语、听力和语义深度对典型 3 岁和 4 岁儿童单词学习的贡献。


目的 本研究考察了通过感知学习、通过生产学习和语义深度作为学龄前儿童单词学习的贡献者。有广泛的证据表明，语义深度是单词学习的重要贡献者，尤其是当语义线索随着时间的推移而重复和间隔时。感知学习和生产学习有时都支持单词学习，但并非在所有情况下都支持。本研究的目的是在一个实验范式中检查所有三种学习机制。方法 36 名正常发育的学龄前儿童完成了实验。他们熟悉了 16 个新词，这些词被作为外来名字语境化。这些外星人分为四组，每组包括一个基础外星人和三个由后缀标记的经过修饰的外星人。孩子们完成了四次熟悉：两次他们简单地听外星人的名字（感知学习），第二次他们重复外星人的名字（生产学习）。这些条件与语义深度操作（有和没有语言语义线索的外星人）交叉。每次熟悉后，完成指涉识别和对抗命名任务以评估学习情况。结果 儿童在熟悉语义深度后能够识别出更多的外来指涉对象。感知学习和生产学习都没有显着影响。结论 本研究证实并扩展了语义深度的好处，但结果尚不清楚感知和产生对单词学习的相对重要性。尽管如此，该研究表明同时研究与单词学习相关的多个因素是有益的。