Performance in each trial testing novel word

Before discussing results from inferential statistic analyses, this section provides a

general description for the trials that were designed to test the performance on the target

words. Results were summarized in Table 4.1. The accuracy in Trial 1, Trial 3 and in

Trail 4 in the production task (see Table 3.3 on p. 47) was coded for further analysis. If

the target word was produced for the certain action shown in the video of the trial, the

response would be coded as “target word”. On the other hand, other responses or no

responses would be coded as “others”.¹⁶

Overall, the performance on learning a general word was more stable across the

pre-test session and the post-test session when compared to the performance on learning

specific words. Results from the General Condition showed that about 70% of responses

were target words in each trial. On the other hand, results from the Specific Condition

showed that the proportion of target responses dropped in the post-tests for both the test

with the baseline label, i.e., Label 1, and the other test with Label 2. It seemed that the

contrast marked by an additional label (Label 2) was not learned and this contrast also

impeded the performance of the baseline label. Nevertheless, it was also found that

participants under the Specific Condition still had better performance in the post-test

with Label 1 than that with Label 2 (Label 1: 52% vs. Label 2: 33% ).

In addition, the performance on mapping Action 2 onto Label 1 in the General

Condition could be compared to the performance on mapping Action 2 onto Label 2 in

16 It should be noted that these two trials were designed to test the production for the baseline verb, and thus the response of the other specific verb in the Specific Condition would be coded as “others”.

the Specific Condition. Results showed that children under the General Condition

perform much better than those in the Specific Condition (General: 70% vs. Specific:

33%). It seemed that mapping a similar action onto the same label is easier than

mapping it onto a different label.

Table 4.1: The number and proportion of target responses in the production task

General Specific

Target break carry Total Target break carry Total

Session Stimuli n=30 n=30 n=60 n=30 n=30 n=60

Pre-test Action 1 Label 1 23 17 40 (67%) Label 1 23 23 46 (77%)

Post-test Action 1 Label 1 22 20 42 (70%) Label 1 13 18 31 (52%)

Post-test Action 2 Label 1 24 18 42 (70%) Label 2 9 11 20 (33%)

Change from pre-test to post-test

To explore whether children’s responses in the pre-test session significantly

differed from those in the post-test, performance of each child was analyzed through

McNemar tests. In this section, for the Specific Condition, it was explored whether the

additional label would facilitate or impede the performance on the baseline label. For

the General Condition, it was examined whether the additional kind of exemplar for the

same label facilitated the performance of the label in the test trial with the baseline

action.

Table 4.2 summarized the frequency of responses for the pre-test and the post-test

on the baseline verb. Most children under the General Condition did not change their

response after being exposed to a novel action that was also labeled by the baseline verb.

The proportion of target responses in the pre-test and the post-test was similar. On the

other hand, the McNemar tests showed that in the Specific Condition the proportion of

children responding with target words in the pre-test significantly differed from the

proportion in the post-test (p < .0005): Forty-six out of 60 children responded with

target words in the pre-test while only 31 out of 60 in the post-test did so. This

difference is attributable to the fact that 16 children produced the target word in the

pre-test successfully but failed to respond with the target word in the post-test whereas

only one child changed their response from the target word to others.

Taken as a whole, showing another similar action and mapping it onto the same

word did not affect the performance on producing the baseline verb, as shown in results

from the General Condition; in contrast, exposing children with a different word that

labeled a similar action seemed to affect the production of the baseline verb, as shown

in results from the Specific Condition. One possibility might be that some of the

children in the Specific Condition were confused by the two newly-learned words. They

produced the other word, which was supposed to label the other action rather than the

action shown in the test trial. In addition, the lower frequency of the baseline verb in the

Specific Condition could be a competing account for the poorer performance in the

Specific Condition when compared to General condition. However, this possibility

seems not plausible since the frequency of another specific verb was actually lower than

baseline verb in the Specific Condition. If frequency alone could account for the

learning process in this task, children should have been more likely to produce the

baseline verb instead of changing their responses from the baseline verb to the other

verb, which was presented with lower frequency.

Table 4.2: Performance on the baseline verb in the production task (pre-test and post-test)

Pre-test

Target word Others Total

General Post-test Target word 37 5 42

Others 3 15 18

Total 40 20 60

McNemar test: p =.727

Specific Post-test Target word 30 1 31

Others 16 13 29

Total 46 14 60

McNemar test: p < .0005