1999 Volume 47 Issue 1 Pages 68-77
In two experiments, 40 five-year-old children and 44 adults were tested on an object named novel word selection task. The subjects were presented with 1 unfamiliar object and 3 familiar objects. Information was given to subjects on the purpose of an action, and, in the case of the familiar objects, whether it had high or low suitableness for that action. The 5-year-old children in Experiment 1 were more likely to select the familiar object with high suitableness in using it for the action than the object with low suitableness. Adults in Experiment 2 also indicated roughly the same result as the 5-year-old children. However, in the first case of the familiar objects with low suitableness, adults were more likely to select the familiar object than the 5-year-old children. These findings suggested that three factors were related to the rejection of mutual exclusivity in the lexical learning process, i. e. information on the purpose of an action, the suitableness in using a familiar object for an action, and the age of the subjects.
