..and what can word-learning in dogs teach us about the evolution of language in humans?
Time Out…. This is just amazing! Â Really, just amazing… Â Give it a read or two… Â And pet your animal(s) today…. Â Okay, go back to reading the article… Â Time In!
What is involved in the learning of a single new word? Consider the word “tiger”, being learned by a child with already a modest vocabulary, at least for animal words. First the child must make a new entry in the mental lexicon – that “tiger” is a word in the first place. He has to categorize it as a noun. It has to be categorized under “animal” (a supernym) and related to its hyponyms, like “Sumatran tiger.” Then, of course, the child has to learn what actual *thing* the word “tiger” refers to. Now, various conceptual categories likely have to be restructured. Before, the child might have referred to tigers as “cats,” but now the child has must conceptually distinguish cats from tigers. Sometimes, the child has to accomplish all of this without explicit instruction; he or she may be exposed to a word casually, or in the course of conversation. Early research showed that children indeed were able to learn new words after just a single casual exposure. As you can see, learning only one new word involves learning a considerable amount of new information.
The process by which a child learns a new word after only one exposure is called “fast mapping.” And kids “fast map”, well, fast. And often. From 2 years of age, typical English-speaking children add about ten new words a day to their vocabulary until they reach an average vocabulary size of 60,000 words by high school graduation.
Is the ability to fast map unique to language learning, or does it reflect more general cognitive learning skills that may be shared with other animals? Meet Rico.
via Monday Pets: How Do Dogs Learn New Words? : The Thoughtful Animal.