Foundations of Verb Learning: Infants Categorize Path and Manner in Motion Events

1. Foundations of Verb Learning: Infants Categorize Path and Manner in Motion Events Shannon M. Pruden, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek Temple University Mandy J. Maguire & Meredith A. Meyer University of Louisville University of Oregon

2. Not just verbs… • Relational terms • In English, relations are encoded in, not only verbs, but also in prepositions

3. What we know about verbs… • Verbs are hard to learn (Gentner, 1988) • Actions are ephemeral • Verbs are polysemous • “Run” - 42 entries vs. “ball” - 9 entries • Verbs can encode diverse components • Path, manner, result, and instrument

4. The Paradox • Verbs appear in children’s earliest vocabularies • Choi, 1998 • Choi and Bowerman, 1991 • Fenson, et al., 1994 • Nelson, 1989 • Tardiff, 1996

5. Demonstration: Verbs are hard Watch, Meredith’s blicking? What does blicking refer to?

6. Possible meanings of “blicking”: • Path: the trajectory of agent • e.g. enter, come, approach • Manner: the way in which the agent moves • e.g. walk, dance, swagger, sway, stroll • Result: • e.g. open, close • Instrument: • e.g. hammer, shovel

7. Path and Manner • Focus on path and manner: • (1) Appear in most languages. • (2) They are treated differently across languages. • English - Manner encoded in verb; path encoded in preposition. • Spanish - Path encoded in verb; manner encoded in adverb (optionally).

8. Most of what has been done on verbs… • Early production of relational terms • Choi & Bowerman, 1991 • Tardif, 1996 • Gopnik & Choi, 1995 • Mapping relational terms onto actions and events • Choi, et al., 1999 • Maguire, et al., 2003 • Naigles, 1996

9. But…Building verbs requires three steps: • A) Attention to non-linguistic components of action • B) Where action meets words • C) Productive use of verbs in grammar. • Little work has been done on attention to non-linguistic components of action.

10. This Talk is in Four Parts • Part 1: Path & manner in non-linguistic motion events • Part 2: Two Studies- Can infants form categories of path and manner? • Part 3: Interpreting these results • Part 4: Future Directions

11. Part 1: Path and manner in non-linguistic motion events • Pulverman and colleagues (2002; 2003): • 7 month olds discriminate path and manner • 14-17 month olds discriminate path and manner. • Casasola, Hohenstein, & Naigles (2003): • 10 month olds discriminate path and manner. • To date, this is of what is known about path and manner in non-linguistic motion events.

12. So What’s Missing… • Oakes & Rakison (2003): • “words…refer to categories of objects and events, or properties of these things.” • Therefore, verbs label categories of actions and events rather than single events.

13. For example, “running” • “Running” is considered the same action whether performed by Carl Lewis or Grandma.

14. Part 2: Two Studies • Study 1: Can infants form categories of path across multiple exemplars of manner? • Study 2: Can infants form categories of manner across multiple exemplars of path?

15. How to address these questions: • Use a proven paradigm • Use novel, easily manipulated and controlled stimuli • Several exemplars of path and manner • A consistent design across both studies

16. Paradigm • Preferential Looking Paradigm: forced-choice split-screen (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996) • Non-linguistic task • Dependent Variable: Looking Time

17. Novel, easily manipulated and controlled stimuli

18. 6 Paths Over Under Past Around Behind In Front 6 Manners Flap Spin Twist Side Bend Bend Forward Toe-Touch Stimuli across studies

19. Design across studies • Introduction • Salience Trials • Four Familiarization Trials • Test Trials • Trials are 12 seconds

20. Introduction Trial • Purpose: To ensure infants look to both sides

21. Salience Trial • Purpose • To show that infants do not have any a priori preferences for test events. • What they see • Two clips simultaneously. • Same clips they see at test. • Assumption • Infants will not have a preference for either clip.

22. Familiarization Trials • Four exemplars of the category are shown. • Trials are separated by attention-getter: • Picture of a baby • Accompanied by music

23. Test Trials • Test trials • Two clips shown simultaneously • In-category event (familiar exemplar) • Out-of-category event (novel exemplar) • Predictions • Infants who categorize will show a preference for one of these clips.

24. Subjects 24 7-9 month olds (M = 8.72, SD = 1.01) 24 10-12 month olds (M = 11.29, SD = 0.87) 15 13-15 month olds (M = 14.80, SD = 1.07) Mono-lingual English-speaking homes. Equal numbers of males and females. Study 1: Path Categorization

25. Salience Trial “Flap Around” “Flap Past”

26. Familiarization Trials for Path • Four familiarization trials • Same path across multiple exemplars of manner • Vary manner across same path • Example, “around”

27. Familiarization Trial 1: “Side Bend Around”

28. Familiarization Trial 2: “Twist Around”

29. Familiarization Trial 3: “Spin Around”

30. Familiarization Trial 4: “Toe Touch Around”

31. Test Trials “Flap Around” Novel Manner, Familiar Path In-category event “Flap Past” Novel Manner, Novel Path Out-of-category event

32. Was there a salience preference?

33. Results- Path Categorization

34. Study 1: Conclusions • No a priori preferences for the test clips • 7-9 month olds were not able to categorize path • 10-12 and 13-15 month olds categorized path • Familiarity preference

35. Subjects 24 7-9 month olds (M = 8.47, SD = 0.96) 24 10-12 month olds (M = 11.49, SD = 0.80) 23 13-15 month olds (M = 14.75, SD = 0.94) Mono-lingual English-speaking homes. Equal numbers of males and females. Study 2: Manner Categorization

36. Salience Trial “Toe Touch Under” “Twist Under”

37. Familiarization Trials for Manner • Four familiarization trials • Same manner across multiple exemplars of path • Vary path across same manner • Example, “twist”

38. Familiarization Trial 1: “Twist Over”

39. Familiarization Trial 2: “Twist Around”

40. Familiarization Trial 3: “Twist In Front”

41. Familiarization Trial 4: “Twist Past”

42. Test Trials “Toe Touch Under” Novel Manner, Novel Path Out-of-category event “Twist Under” Familiar Manner, Novel Path In-category event

43. Was there a salience preference?

44. Results- Manner Categorization

45. Study 2: Conclusions • No a priori preferences for the test clips • 7-9 and 10-12 month olds were not able to categorize manner • 13-15 month olds categorized manner • Novelty Preference

46. Novelty/Familiarity Preference • Why do infants prefer to look at novelty in manner categorization study, but familiarity in path categorization study? • Infants prefer familiar stimuli when stimuli are complex and need time to process (Hunter, et al., 1983) • Maybe the infants need more time to process these stimuli • Independent Samples t-test with average familiarization time for path study vs. manner study: t (132) = 2.472, p<.05. • Infants look longer at familiarization clips for path study.

47. Part 3: Summary- Our interpretation 10-12 months Path: familiar Manner: no preference Categorize path 13-15 months Path: familiar Manner: novel Categorize path and manner 7-9 months Path: no preference Manner: no preference No categorization What do these results mean?

48. What does all of this mean? • First study to investigate whether infants can categorize path and manner • Developmental Progression • Path first, then manner • Preverbal infants can abstract and categorize relations • Learning verbs is hard, but conceptual foundations are present

49. Part 4: Future Directions • Does labeling facilitate categorization? • What other types of event categories can infants form? • Would we see similar results with other stimuli? • Would we see same trends for infants learning other languages?

50. Natalie Hansell Beate Müller Heike Herrmann Dr. Nora Newcombe Carolyn Fenter Dr. Roberta Golinkoff Rachel Pulverman Anthony Dick NSF Acknowledgements… Thanks to all the parents and children who participated in these studies at the Temple University Infant Lab.