{"pk":26501,"title":"A performance model for early word learning","subtitle":null,"abstract":"The emergence of language around a child’s first birthday isone of the greatest transformations in human development.Does this transition require a fundamental shift in the child’sknowledge or beliefs, or could it instead be attributable to moregradual changes in processing abilities? We present a simplemodel of cognitive performance that supports the second con-clusion. The premise of this model is that any cognitive op-eration requires multiple steps, each of which require sometime to complete and have some probability of failure. Weuse meta-analysis to estimate these parameters for two com-ponents of simple ostensive word learning: social cue use andword recognition. When combined in our model, these esti-mates suggest that learning should be very difficult for chil-dren younger than around a year, especially with gaze alone.This model takes a first step towards quantifying performancelimitations for cognitive development and may be broadly ap-plicable to other developmental changes.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Speed of processing; development; word learning;meta-analysis"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9nb618qs","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Michael","middle_name":"C.","last_name":"Frank","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""},{"first_name":"Molly","middle_name":"L.","last_name":"Lewis","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""},{"first_name":"Kyle","middle_name":"","last_name":"MacDonald","name_suffix":"","institution":"Stanford University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26501/galley/16137/download/"}]}