Ages: 10-16 months

Lots of our word learning research tends to focus on how young children learn words for objects, like cup or ball. However, some of babies’ very first words include other types of words, like uh-oh, night-night, hi, more, all-gone, bye-bye, and wow. What do babies think these non-object words mean?

In this study, we tested one-year-olds’ knowledge of words like uh-oh and night-night. They saw pairs of pictures of different scenes and heard a non-object word labeling only one of the pictures. We wanted to know whether babies could look at the correct/matching scene after hearing each word.

We found that overall, babies did not look at the correct pictures even when their parents said that they knew the words. Uh-oh!

Why did this happen?

We also studied how these non-object words are used in babies’ homes, and found that for many of these words, there isn’t one clear scene that can depict their meaning.

For example, parents might say uh-oh when lots of things fall/spill (not just bottles), when things break, when things get stuck, when unexpected things happen, and many other different contexts.

So, it seems like this kind of picture task is far too simplified and not at all like babies’ dynamic, context-rich home word learning experiences. We are excited to follow up on this work and come up with other creative ways of testing what babies think these non-object words mean!

Researchers: Kennedy Casey, Chris Potter, Erica Wojcik, and Casey Lew-Williams