A changing role for transitional probabilities in word learning during the transition to toddlerhood?

Lany, Jill and Karaman, Ferhat and Hay, Jessica F. (2024) A changing role for transitional probabilities in word learning during the transition to toddlerhood? Developmental Psychology, 60 (3). pp. 567-581. ISSN 0012-1649

Abstract

Infants’ sensitivity to transitional probabilities (TPs) supports language development by facilitating mapping high-TP (HTP) words tomeaning, at least up to 18 months of age. Here we tested whether this HTP advantage holds as lexical development progresses, and infants become better at forming word–referent mappings. Two groups of 24-month-olds (N = 64 and all White, tested in the United States) first listened to Italian sentences containing HTP and low-TP (LTP) words. We then used HTP and LTP words, and sequences that violated these statistics, in a mapping task. Infants learned HTP and LTP words equally well. They also learned LTP violations as well as LTP words, but learned HTP words better than HTP violations. Thus, by 2 years of age sensitivity to TPs does not lead to an HTP advantage but rather to poor mapping of violations of HTP word forms.