Abstract
Past research has uncovered a surprising paradox: although 14-month-olds have exquisite phonetic discrimination skills (e.g., distinguishing [b] from [d]), they have difficulty using phonetic detail when mapping novel words to objects in laboratory tasks (confusing “bin” and “din”). While some have attributed infants’ difficulty to immature word learning abilities, we argue instead that infants are powerful word learners and this apparent difficulty occurs only when the referential status of the novel word is unclear.
Across two experiments, we presented 14-month-olds with conditions conducive to word-referent mapping: clear sentential contexts and word-referent training. In both experiments, infants used phonetic detail to map novel words to objects, revealing no fundamental discontinuity in its use from speech perception to word learning.
Fennell, C. & Waxman, S.R.. (in press 2009). What paradox? Referential cues allow for infant use of phonetic detail in word learning. Child Development.
