RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Twomey, Katherine E. A1 Morse, Anthony F. A1 Cangelosi, Angelo A1 Horst, Jessica S. YR 2016 T1 Children’s referent selection and word learning: Insights from a developmental robotic system JF Interaction Studies VO 17 IS 1 SP 93 OP 119 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17.1.05two PB John Benjamins SN 1572-0373, AB It is well-established that toddlers can correctly select a novel referent from an ambiguous array in response to a novel label. There is also a growing consensus that robust word learning requires repeated label-object encounters. However, the effect of the context in which a novel object is encountered is less well-understood. We present two embodied neural network replications of recent empirical tasks, which demonstrated that the context in which a target object is encountered is fundamental to referent selection and word learning. Our model offers an explicit account of the bottom-up associative and embodied mechanisms which could support children’s early word learning and emphasises the importance of viewing behaviour as the interaction of learning at multiple timescales.This article is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
, UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/is.17.1.05two