J. Child Lang. 38 (2011), 933950. f Cambridge University Press 2010 doi:10.

1017/S0305000910000401

Mutual exclusivity and phonological novelty constrain word learning at 16 months*

EMILY MATHER
AND

KIM PLUNKETT

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

(Received 11 May 2009 Revised 22 January 2010 Accepted 9 July 2010 First published online 22 November 2010)

ABSTRACT

Studies report that infants as young as 1 ; 3 to 1;5 will seek out a novel object in response to hearing a novel label (e.g. Halberda, 2003; Markman, Wasow & Hansen, 2003). This behaviour is commonly known as the mutual exclusivity response (Markman, 1989 ; 1990). However, evidence for mutual exclusivity does not imply that the infant has associated a novel label with a novel object. We used an intermodal preferential looking task to investigate whether infants aged 1;4 could use mutual exclusivity to guide their association of novel labels with novel objects. The results show that infants can successfully map a novel label onto a novel object, provided that the novel label has no familiar phonological neighbours. Therefore, as early as 1; 4, infants can use mutual exclusivity to form novel wordobject associations, although this process is constrained by the phonological novelty of a label.

INTRODUCTION

During the second year of life, infants make considerable progress in acquiring the lexicon of their language community. Because language is a shared system of communication, the infant has to learn from other speakers how words refer to the world. However, it is unclear how much the speaker has to explicitly guide the infant towards forming the correct word mappings. A considerable number of studies have shown that infants word learning is sensitive to social cues such as pointing and eye gaze (e.g. Baldwin, Markman, Bill, Desjardins, Irwin & Tidball, 1996 ; Baldwin, 1993). Nonetheless, many other researchers (e.g. Markman, 1989 ; 1990 ;
[*] This research was supported by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant (BBE0074061). We thank Lucy Holdstock, Rosie Minnigin and Emily Ruzich for their assistance, and all the parents and infants who made this research possible. Address for correspondence : Emily Mather, Department of Experimental Psychology, South Parks Road, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. OX1 3UD. tel : +44(0)1865 271522; e-mail : emily.mather@psy.ox.ac.uk

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Golinko, Mervis & Hirsh-Pasek, 1994 ; Hollich, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinko, 2000) have argued that the infant is biased to form particular word mappings, even in the absence of guidance from the speaker. One proposal is that infants will map novel labels onto novel, nameunknown objects, rather than familiar, name-known objects (e.g. Hutchinson, 1986 ; Markman & Wachtel, 1988; Merriman & Bowman, 1989). Following Markman (1989; 1990), we refer to this behaviour as MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY. For example, an infant might see an object they know the name for, such as a ball, and an object they have not seen before. Upon hearing a novel label, such as wug, an infant using mutual exclusivity may associate the novel label with the novel object, rather than the ball. In principle, mutual exclusivity enables an infant to learn the meaning of new words even when the speaker does not provide overt cues, such as eye gaze or pointing towards a referent. A number of explanations for this behaviour have been proposed. Markman (1989 ; 1990) has argued that infants reject second labels for objects. Other explanations include the NOVEL-NAME-NAMELESS-CATEGORY principle (Golinko et al., 1994 ; Mervis & Bertrand, 1994), and the PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST (Clark, 1987). What all these accounts have in common is that the infant has to distinguish name-known and name-unknown objects. Alternatively, Merriman, Marazita & Jarvis (1995) have proposed a FEELING OF NOVELTY principle, a strategy of mapping novel labels to objects which FEEL novel. Hence, even without knowing or retrieving the name for the familiar object, the infant maps the novel label to the novel object. Some investigators have focused on deciding between these dierent theories (e.g. Merriman & Schuster, 1991 ; Markman et al., 2003). However, in this article we explore the question of whether evidence for mutual exclusivity is also evidence of word learning. To understand the impact of mutual exclusivity on vocabulary development, it is important to examine carefully what has been demonstrated in prior studies. The methods used to study mutual exclusivity have varied. For example, some researchers have used object selection procedures (e.g. Merriman & Bowman, 1989; Merriman & Schuster, 1991 ; Horst & Samuelson, 2008), while other researchers have used an intermodal preferential looking (IPL) procedure (e.g. Halberda, 2003; White & Morgan, 2008 ; Mather & Plunkett, 2009). What these studies have in common is that the infant is required to select or attend to a novel object, rather than a familiar object, in response to a novel label. Thus, even though the novel label is presented in an ambiguous context, i.e. the presence of multiple objects, the infant is biased towards the novel object. What can be concluded from these studies about infants ability to use mutual exclusivity to learn new words ? We argue that while an infant might attend to the novel object, this does not guarantee that the infant has formed, or will form, an association between the novel label and novel object. 934

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Our reasoning is as follows : evidence for an association between word and object cannot be established if anything OTHER than knowledge of the association could bias attention to the correct referent of a label. The typical test of mutual exclusivity presents objects which dier in both familiarity and lexical status (i.e. whether name-known or name-unknown). The cognitive processes underlying the mutual exclusivity response need only exploit these dierences to guide attention to the novel object. Furthermore, whether or not this leads the infant to form an association between a novel word and a novel object could depend on a host of factors, such as the processing load of the task. Thus, while a newly formed association might be the cause or outcome of the mutual exclusivity response, other explanations are possible. Consequently, while there have been many demonstrations of the mutual exclusivity response (e.g. Merriman & Bowman, 1989 ; Merriman & Schuster, 1991 ; Halberda, 2003 ; Markman et al., 2003) this response is not clear evidence of word learning. Yet, to understand the impact of mutual exclusivity on vocabulary development we need to know when it causes infants to learn new word mappings. Currently, the earliest age at which infants display the mutual exclusivity response is 1;3 to 1 ;5 (Halberda, 2003 ; Markman et al., 2003). However, this might not correspond to the age at which infants use mutual exclusivity to form new word mappings. Indeed, even infants aged 0; 10 are reported to display a precursor form of the mutual exclusivity response (Mather & Plunkett, 2010 ; see also Dewar & Xu, 2007). Yet, the very limited vocabularies of infants aged 0;10 suggests that this behaviour is not contributing signicantly to word learning. Markman et al. (2003) have argued that the onset of mutual exclusivity occurs prior to the purported vocabulary explosion , rather than as a consequence of increased vocabulary size. Yet, it remains to be seen whether infants as young as 1 ; 3 to 1 ; 5 can associate novel labels with novel objects when mutual exclusivity is the only cue to a word mapping. Therefore, our understanding of how mutual exclusivity impacts vocabulary development can be strengthened by testing whether infants retain novel word mappings FOLLOWING the mutual exclusivity response. We know of two studies which have tested for novel wordobject associations following trials in which infants can use mutual exclusivity to disambiguate the referent of a novel label. Mervis & Bertrand (1994) tested infants aged 1; 4 to 1 ; 8 on such a task, and Horst & Samuelson (2008) tested infants aged 2; 0. However, in each case, test objects were not equated for familiarity or prior labelling of the object. Hence, it is dicult to interpret whether infants responses were guided by their knowledge of the word mapping or some other process. For example, in Horst & Samuelson (2008) a distractor object was included during test trials, which was familiarized but not labelled. The two-year-olds in this study did not display evidence of 935

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exploiting mutual exclusivity to form word mappings, yet the inclusion of a distractor object could have made the task unnecessarily dicult. We also note that the use of object selection procedures and other task demands (such as a delay between training and test trials) in Horst & Samuelson (2008) and Mervis & Bertrand (1994) may have placed a limit on the youngest age of successful task performance. We have argued that it is critical to test whether mutual exclusivity is used to learn words at the youngest age at which they display the response. To establish evidence of word learning, it is necessary to use an experimental procedure appropriate for the young age of the infants. In contrast to object selection paradigms, the IPL procedure is a sensitive test of word learning which does not require an overt behavioural response. The measurement of infants visual xations can be used to assess both the mutual exclusivity response and the formation of novel wordobject associations. The use of the IPL procedure as a test of novel word learning was established by Schafer & Plunkett (1998). In their adaptation of the IPL paradigm, infants are trained and tested on two novel wordobject associations to provide a rigorous test of word comprehension. At test, the two novel objects are paired together, and each object is labelled in turn. When one of the objects is labelled, a visual preference for one object over the other can only be caused by knowledge of the novel word mapping. The use of the IPL procedure provides the opportunity to investigate other aspects of the mutual exclusivity constraint. An important aspect of mutual exclusivity is that it is a response to NOVEL words. The use of mutual exclusivity to learn new words requires the infant to discriminate novel words from familiar words, and map the novel word to a novel object. Studies have found that the likelihood or strength of the mutual exclusivity response is related to the phonological similarity between a novel word and the name for a familiar object. Merriman & Schuster (1991) found that two- to four-year-olds were less likely to select a novel object over a familiar object in response to a novel label when the novel label was phonologically similar to the familiar object name than if phonologically distinct. White & Morgan (2008) found that infants aged 1; 7 would incrementally increase attention to a novel object over a familiar object with graded decreases in the phonological similarity between the novel word they heard and the familiar object name, suggesting that the perceptual distance between novel and familiar words inuences the perceived novelty of a word. Infants judgements of novelty can also draw upon their phonological knowledge beyond words and objects immediately present. Swingley & Aslin (2007) found that infants aged 1 ; 6 would not map a novel phonological neighbour (i.e. a novel word varying by one phonological segment) of a familiar word to a novel object, even though the referent of the familiar word was absent during training. However, their study used ostensive 936

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naming during training ; it is currently not known whether the mutual exclusivity response would also be constrained by this form of global phonological knowledge. We also note that the studies by Merriman & Schuster (1991) and White & Morgan (2008) do not assess the impact of phonological novelty on word learning, just as other investigations of mutual exclusivity discussed above have not directly assessed word learning. Hence, the IPL procedure can be used to understand the impact of phonological novelty on word learning via mutual exclusivity. Do judgements of phonological novelty in a mutual exclusivity task inuence the formation of novel word mappings ? We report an IPL experiment with infants aged 1;4 to test whether the mutual exclusivity response leads to the formation of novel word mappings. We train and test infants on two novel word mappings. During training, each novel object is paired with a familiar object, and the novel object is named with a novel label. We provide infants with multiple opportunities to form each novel wordobject association. At test, the two novel objects are paired together across a series of trials, and each object is labelled equally often. A further manipulation is that one of the novel words is phonologically distinct from familiar words known by infants of this age, while the other novel word is phonologically similar to several words comprehended by infants aged 1; 4. If infants phonological knowledge is important in the use of mutual exclusivity to form word mappings, we expect to observe a dierence in their response to the novel words at test. Specically, the absence of familiar phonological neighbours to a novel word may facilitate infants use of mutual exclusivity to form a word mapping. In order to maintain infants attention across the train and test procedure, we present a video of the speaker uttering the auditory stimuli during each trial.

METHOD

Participants Thirty infants aged 1; 4 (M=1; 4.8; Range=1 ;3.231;4.24 ; 15 male, 15 female) contributed data to the experiment. All infants had no known hearing or visual problems and were recruited via the maternity ward at the local hospital. All infants were from homes where British English was the only language spoken. Nine additional infants were tested but excluded due to : fussiness (4), experimenter error (2), diculty coding (1), reported hearing problems (1), or a second language spoken at home (1). Stimuli Auditory stimuli were two novel object labels (Meb, Pok), four familiar object labels (Chair, Clock, Key, Train), and the general directive phrase 937

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Look at that!. The novel word Meb was selected because it has no phonological neighbours in the typical lexicon of infants aged 1;4. In contrast, the novel word Pok has the phonological neighbour Sock, a word commonly understood at 1 ; 4. (Analyses of parental vocabulary report are presented below.) Other neighbours to Pok include Clock, Block and Park. All familiar and novel object labels were embedded in the sentence Look at the [X]! . Another token of Look ! was used as an attention stimulus between trials. Approximate durations of labels were as follows : familiar labels ranged between 700900 ms, Meb was 500 ms, Pok was 650 ms and that in the directive phrase was 650 ms. Auditory stimuli were produced by a native female speaker of British English in an infant-directed manner. The speaker was lmed against a plain, light background, with her head and the top of her shoulders in view. Filming took place in a quiet room using a Panasonic NV-DS28 camcorder. Video was captured at a frame rate of 25 fps and a sample size of 24 bits. Sound was captured at a sampling rate of 48 kHz in stereo and a sample size of 16 bits. Video les were edited using Adobe Premiere Pro to create separate sound and video les for each utterance. Corresponding sound and video stimuli were edited to ensure the synchronous onset of vocalization. Sound les were further edited in Goldwave v5.19 to remove background noise and match average volume (to x18 dB) across all stimuli. Visual stimuli were JPGs or AVIs with a display size of 32r24 cm and a resolution of 300r300 pixels (les were horizontally compressed from 400 to 300 pixels to accommodate to a widescreen display). Eight familiar object images (ball, car, chair, clock, cup, key, shoe, train) were presented during the experiment, four of which corresponded with the four familiar object labels. Eight novel object images were of unusual objects that the infants were unlikely to have seen or heard named (e.g. accordion, anchor, etc.). All object images were in colour and set against a pale grey background. Seven video les were of the speaker uttering one of four familiar object labels, two novel labels and a neutral phrase. Examples of the objects and a static image of the speaker are provided in Figures 1 and 2. An 8 cm square image of a red cross against a white background was used as an attention stimulus between trials. Design The experiment had two parts, a training phase and a test phase. During the training phase, infants viewed trials in which they could use the mutual exclusivity response to form two novel objectlabel associations. During the test phase, trials were presented to test for infants learning of these novel word mappings. During all trials, two images were presented, one on the left and one on the right of the screen. A video of the speaker was presented 938

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Look at the Meb!

Look at that!

Look at the Pok!

Look at that!

Fig. 1. Example of a training block.

Look at the Meb!

Look at the Pok!

Look at the Meb!

Look at the Pok!

Fig. 2. Example of a test block.

in a central position between the two images, designed to maintain infants interest for the duration of the experiment. Every training trial presented one familiar object and one novel object. There were three dierent types of training trials : FAMILIAR LABEL trials, 939

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presenting the name for the familiar object ; NOVEL LABEL trials, presenting a novel name for the novel object ; and CONTROL trials, presenting a general directive phrase. The familiar label trials were included to assess infants responses to familiar word mappings. The novel label trials were designed to both elicit the mutual exclusivity response and provide infants with the opportunity to form a novel word mapping. Control trials were included to determine whether infants responses to novel label trials were specic to hearing a novel label, or a more general attentional process (e.g. looking behaviour in the absence of hearing a familiar label). During the experiment there were eight unique trials : four familiar label trials, two novel label trials and two control trials. A dierent pair of objects was presented in each of these eight dierent trials. The two novel label trials and two control trials were blocked together (see Figure 1), and this block was presented four times during training. Each presentation of this block was preceded by one of the familiar label trials. Thus, each of the four familiar labels was presented once, while the two novel label and two control trials were presented four times during the experiment. Within each block, two dierent novel labels (Meb, Pok) were presented on the two novel label trials, while both control trials presented the phrase Look at that (see Figure 1). Trials within each block were presented in the same order across the experiment. Four familiar objects ball, car, cup, shoe were presented during novel label or control trials. Four other familiar objects chair, clock, key, train were presented during familiar label trials. For the two novel label and two control trials, each infant received one of four possible sets of object pairs. Each of these sets consisted of the same four familiar objects and four novel objects, but with a dierent pairing of objects for each set. Across these sets, every object was paired with two other objects, once as a novel label trial and once as a control trial. Consequently, across infants, the two novel labels were counterbalanced across the four possible novel referents. Side of image presentation was counterbalanced for each of the novel label and control trials across the training blocks, and the familiar and novel images appeared an equal number of times to the left and right across trials within a block. During the test phase, each trial presented the two novel objects from the novel label trials. Each novel label was presented on two test trials, counterbalancing for side of target presentation (see Figure 2). Each infant received a dierent randomization for the order of trials in training and test blocks. All trials during the experiment lasted 6 s, with the onset of naming (or the onset of that) at 2633 ms into the trial. Allowing for a response latency of 367 ms (Swingley & Aslin, 2000), trials were split into equal 3 s pre- and post-naming phases. 940

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Procedure Prior to participation, all parents were requested to complete a British adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (the British CDI; see Hamilton, Plunkett & Schafer, 2000). Infants sat on their parents lap facing a at widescreen display (110r40 cm) with their eyes at a distance of approximately 80 cm, level with the vertical midpoint of the images and at an equal horizontal distance from both object images. Object images were positioned on screen at a distance of 67 cm centre-tocentre. Two cameras mounted directly above the horizontal midpoints of each image recorded infants eye movements. Synchronized signals from the cameras were routed via a digital splitter to create a recording of two time-locked images of the infant. Auditory stimuli were delivered via two loudspeakers centrally positioned side-by-side above the display. Caregivers were requested to keep their eyes closed, to wear headphones playing music and to not point at the screen. Trials were manually launched by the experimenter when the infant was looking towards the screen. If the infant was looking away between trials, the auditory and/or visual attention stimuli were presented to return the infants gaze to centre. Scoring A digital video o-line scoring system was used to assess infants eye movements on a frame-by-frame basis (every 40 ms) by a skilled blind coder. This technique enabled tracking of every xation, coded either as left looking, right looking, centre looking or other looking. Coding reliability was assessed for all twenty-four trials by a second blind coder for a random sample of 20% of infants who contributed data to the experiment (N=6). The mean intra-class correlation coecient was 0.978 (Range= 0.9220.998).
RESULTS

CDI analysis British CDIs were completed by caregivers for 26 out the 30 infants who participated in the experiment. Mean comprehension vocabulary was 157 words (Range=41348 words) and mean production vocabulary was 28 words (Range=0177 words). Reported comprehension was high for the four familiar objects presented during novel label and control trials : Ball (85%), Car (92 %), Cup (73%) and Shoe (96%). Reported comprehension for the four familiar objects presented during familiar label trials was somewhat lower : Chair (77 %), Clock (46%), Key (50 %) and Train (73%). However, Houston-Price, Mather & Sakkalou (2007) report parental underestimation of comprehension vocabulary on the British CDI for infants aged between 941

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1 ; 3 and 1; 9, suggesting that the actual level of comprehension for the familiar objects may be higher than reported. The British CDI contains four words which can be classied as phonological neighbours to the novel word Pok : Block, Clock, Park and Sock. A high proportion of infants were reported to understand the word Sock (96 %), with smaller numbers of infants reported to understand the words Clock (46%), Block (42 %)1 and Park (38%). The British CDI does not contain any words which are phonological neighbours to the novel word Meb. Speaker video analysis Prior to analyzing infants attention to the training and test images, we examined how much time they spent looking at the speaker video. Averaged across all 24 experimental trials, infants mean total looking time to the speaker was 3543 ms (SD=664 ms) out of a maximum of 6000 ms total trial duration. Thus, on average, the infants spent just over half the trial duration looking at the video of the speaker. Infants total looking time to the speaker declined signicantly across the experiment (b=x0.846, t(22)=x7.45, p<0.001). However, there were similarly high levels of attention to the speaker during both training (M=3615 ms, SD=661 ms) and test (M=3187 ms, SD=918 ms) trials. Training analysis The infants attention to the speaker video may have kept them on-task for the duration of the experiment. However, the reduced share of attention to the images meant it was necessary to use a measure of looking behaviour which provided a reasonable index of infants visual preferences. A proportional measure of total looking time (i.e. total duration of looks to one image divided by total duration of looks to both images) is a commonly used measure in IPL studies of word learning (e.g. Hollich et al., 2000 ; Halberda, 2003 ; Swingley & Aslin, 2007). However, the calculation of a proportional measure can produce high levels of relative preference for one image over another, even if total looking time to the preferred image is low. Because the infants did not spend a lot of time sampling each image, we instead used a longest look dierence measure (longest look to one image minus the longest look to the other image), which also provides a measure of relative preference and yet is sensitive to the absolute amount of looking to an image (see e.g. Houston-Price, Plunkett & Harris, 2005 ; Meints,
[1] Block does not have a unique entry on the British CDI, and is listed as an alternate form to Brick. Because many parents did not indicate which of these alternate forms their child understands, the proportion of infants who understand the word Block could be considerably lower than the reported level of comprehension.

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Plunkett, Harris & Dimmock, 2004). We also note that because the infants were typically xating the speaker video at the onset of naming (see Figure 4), we cannot use standard latency analyses (e.g. Swingley & Aslin, 2000) of shifts between the target and distractor images. A longest look dierence (LLD) measure (longest look to the familiar object minus longest look to the novel object) was calculated for the pre- and post-naming phases of all 20 training trials for each infant. Initially, we assessed whether the LLD measure is a reliable index of infants comprehension within our speaker video paradigm. The LLD measure was averaged across the four familiar label trials for each infant (one infant was excluded from these analyses for not looking at either image during the post-naming phase of these trials). There was a highly reliable eect of naming, with the mean LLD increasing from x24 ms (SD=336 ms) to 497 ms (SD=565 ms) (t(28)=4.45, p<0.001, d=0.83). We further compared the LLD measure to chance (0 ms) for the pre- and post-naming phases of the familiar label trials. While the LLD measure was not signicantly dierent to chance prior to naming (t(28)=x0.38, n.s.), it was signicantly above chance following naming (t(28)=4.74, p<0.001, d=0.88). Having established the LLD measure as a reliable index of infants word comprehension, we analyzed infants attention to the familiar and novel images during the novel label and control training trials. Because of the particularly high level of attention to the speaker video during training, approximately half of the infants were unable to contribute data to each of the 16 cells of the block (4)rcondition (2)rnaming (2) repeated-measures design. Therefore, we averaged the LLD measure across blocks to analyze the eect of condition and naming for all infants. For novel label trials, the mean LLD measure increased slightly from x37 ms (SD=315 ms) before naming to x29 ms (SD=436 ms) after naming, and during control trials the mean LLD measure decreased slightly from 25 ms (SD=268 ms) to x18 ms (SD=353 ms). In a condition (novel label, control) by naming (pre-naming, post-naming) repeated-measures ANOVA, there were no signicant main eects or interactions. There were also no signicant eects when the LLD measure was compared to chance (0 ms) for the pre- and post-naming phases of the novel label and control trials. Individual analyses of each of the four training blocks also did not reveal any signicant eects (all ps>0.1). Finally, in a separate analysis of the novel label trials, there were no signicant dierences between the two novel labels in their eects during training. In summary, there were no reliable eects of hearing a novel label or a control phrase during training.2
[2] During training, infants exhibited a naming eect during familiar label trials, but not novel label trials. However, this dierence was not associated with a dierence in overall

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Mean longest look difference (ms)

600

*p < .025
400

Pre-naming Post-naming

**p < .005

200

-200

Meb Test label

Pok

Fig. 3. Mean longest look dierence score for pre- and post-naming phases of test trials as a function of label (+/x 1 S.E.).

Test analysis The LLD measure (longest look to the target minus longest look to the distractor) was calculated for the pre- and post-naming phases of each test trial for every infant. These scores were averaged across trials for each of the two novel labels, and entered into a repeated-measures ANOVA with the factors of naming (pre-naming, post-naming) and label (Meb, Pok). Because six infants did not contribute data to one cell of the namingrlabel design, a missing value analysis was computed using the ExpectationMaximization algorithm (Dempster, Laird & Rubin, 1977), for the purpose of analyzing the data as a repeated-measures design. These values were entered into the main ANOVA (but not included in further analyses). There was a signicant interaction between naming and label (F(1, 29)= . 4.46, p<0.05, g2 p=0 133). There were no main eects for either of these factors. Figure 3 shows how attention to the target (i.e. named) object increased between the pre- and post-naming phases of Meb trials, but not during Pok trials. For Meb trials, there was a signicant increase in the LLD measure from 7 ms (SD=673 ms) to 394 ms (SD=618 ms) (t(26)=2.66, p<0.025, d=0.51), and attention to the target object was signicantly above chance during the post-naming phase (t(26)=3.31, p<0.005, d=0.64). For
attention to the objects. A namingrtrial type analysis of total looking time to the objects did not reveal any signicant eects. During the post-naming phase, mean total looking was 1094 ms during novel label trials and 1158 ms during familiar label trials.

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0.90 Proportion target looking (%) 0.80 0.70 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 Meb Pok Speaker

64 0

Fig. 4. Proportion of target looking over time during Meb and Pok test trials (the dotted line indicates the proportion of attention to the speaker video vs. test objects).

Pok trials, there was a non-signicant decrease on the LLD measure from x36 ms (SD=658 ms) to x99 ms (SD=709 ms) (t(26)=0.322, n.s.). A binomial test revealed that a signicant proportion of infants (20 out of 27 infants) had a preference for the target object during the post-naming phase of Meb trials (p<0.025). Therefore, the eect of naming during Meb trials was not an artifact of a small number of extreme values. Figure 4 provides frame-by-frame data of how infants attention to the speaker video and objects unfolds during the test trials. The proportional scores for Meb and Pok test trials indicate preference for the target object over the distractor object, while the measure for the speaker video indicates preference for the video over the test objects. Infants attention to the target object uctuates during the pre-naming phase of both Meb and Pok trials. During the post-naming phase, preference for the target object during Meb trials is above chance and increases over time. In contrast, while preference for the target object increases somewhat during the post-naming phase of Pok trials, attention to the target is not consistently above chance. Peak preference for the speaker video over the test objects occurs at the beginning of the test trial and when the speaker utters the naming phrase.

DISCUSSION

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether mutual exclusivity enables infants to form a mapping between a novel label and a novel object. While previous studies have provided considerable evidence for the mutual exclusivity response, it is not clear that this response is evidence of word learning. Hence, in this experiment, we investigated whether infants aged 945

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1 ; 4 would use mutual exclusivity to form novel objectlabel associations. We found that the infants did not display an overt mutual exclusivity response during training. Yet, at test, the infants provided evidence of learning an association for the novel label Meb, but not for the novel label Pok. We provide further discussion of the role of phonological novelty below. We note here that attention to the correct referent of at least one label can only be caused by knowledge of the objectlabel association. Furthermore, acquisition of the objectlabel association could only have occurred during the training phase of the experiment, where novel label trials oered infants the opportunity to exploit mutual exclusivity to form a new objectlabel mapping. Our results, therefore, demonstrate that infants aged 1; 4 can use mutual exclusivity as a cue to form novel word mappings. Although the precise pattern of ndings diers from previous studies of mutual exclusivity in infants (e.g. Halberda, 2003; Markman et al., 2003), we nonetheless provide convergent evidence that infants as young as 1 ;4 can map a novel label to a novel object in an ambiguous context. Our nding reinforces the argument that mutual exclusivity contributes to infants vocabulary development during the rst half of the second year, and that infants can exploit their existing vocabulary to learn new words. Our ndings do not discriminate between dierent explanations of the mutual exclusivity response (e.g. Clark, 1987 ; Markman, 1989 ; 1990; Mervis & Bertrand, 1994). However, our ndings show that whichever process is responsible for this word-learning bias, it also leads infants to form novel objectlabel associations. The most notable dierence between our ndings and those of Halberda (2003) and Markman et al. (2003) is that we do not demonstrate the mutual exclusivity response per se. During training, the infants did not increase attention to a novel object over a familiar object upon hearing a novel label. Although it is not clear why they failed to do so, the presence of the speaker video drew infants attention away from the objects, and may have consequently altered their pattern of attention to the objects. However, successful target looking during familiar label trials was not associated with greater overall attention to the objects than during novel label trials. Thus, the reduced attention to the objects might not itself be the reason for the absence of the mutual exclusivity response. A related possibility is that infants interest in the familiar objects aected their pattern of attention to the novel objects. A bias towards familiar, nameable objects has been reported in other studies (e.g. White & Morgan, 2008 ; Schafer, Plunkett & Harris, 1999 ; see also Halberda, 2003). In contrast, the absence of distracting familiar objects in the test trials may have provided a more sensitive test of comprehension. Other investigators (e.g. Halberda, 2003 ; White & Morgan, 2008) report an increase in attention to a novel object in response to a novel label. 946

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However, it is not clear that infants look MORE to the novel object than the familiar object particularly if they have a preference for the familiar object prior to naming (White & Morgan, 2008 ; Schafer et al., 1999). Thus, although some processing of the novel object is necessary, infants use of mutual exclusivity to learn new words might not require sustained attention to a novel object. In support of this position, Mather & Plunkett (2009) found that infants aged 1; 10.15 did not display a mutual exclusivity response the rst time they were presented with a novel label and familiar and novel object. However, upon re-presentation of the stimuli, the infants looking behaviour suggested that they had formed an association between the novel label and novel object. Therefore, processing of the relation between the novel label and novel object occurred during the original presentation, but this was not evidenced by any preferential xations of the objects. In combination with previous investigations, our ndings suggest that 1; 4 is a threshold age for word learning via mutual exclusivity, and as such, an age where infants are sensitive to the learning context. Markman et al. (2003) found that a group of infants aged 1; 3 to 1 ;5 displayed the mutual exclusivity response in an object search task. Yet, in Halberda (2003), only infants aged 1; 5 displayed evidence of mutual exclusivity. At 1;4, infants did not display a systematic response. In contrast, we have evidence of mutual exclusivity at 1; 4 in an IPL procedure similar to Halberda (2003). It is possible that the infants aged 1; 4 in Halberdas study might have displayed evidence of forming a novel word mapping if they had been tested for subsequent word learning. Alternatively, the inclusion of the speaker video in the present experiment may have facilitated the use of mutual exclusivity, even if it reduced attention to the objects. Unlike Halberda (2003), the speaker video adds a social dimension to the learning context, similar to Markman et al. (2003). Thus, while mutual exclusivity enables infants to form word mappings in the absence of social or pragmatic cues, the presence of a social context might facilitate the use of mutual exclusivity to learn words.3 A further experimental manipulation involved training infants on one novel label without any known phonological neighbours (Meb) and on another novel label with several known phonological neighbours (Pok).
[3] We ran an additional experiment in response to an anonymous reviewers suggestion, in which we removed the speaker video from the display. All other aspects of the experimental design were identical. The exclusion of the speaker video caused a substantial increase in attention to the objects during training. Mean total looking during training trials was 2046 ms in the main experiment, and 5417 ms in the control experiment. Yet, there was no evidence of mutual exclusivity during either the training or test trials of the control experiment. The control experiment provides further support for the suggestion that the presence of the speaker video in the main experiment facilitated word learning.

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Consistent with our predictions, we found that the infants formed a novel mapping for the label Meb, but not for the label Pok. The counterbalanced design of the experiment precludes the possibility that infants looking during test trials was caused by their preference for particular objects. Across infants, four novel objects were counterbalanced as the referent of the two novel labels. Furthermore, the side of presentation of the target object was alternated for both labels at test. Hence, the asymmetry in infants word learning is most likely an outcome of the phonological properties of the labels. An alternative explanation to the phonological neighbourhood account is that the infants had a spurious preference for one label over the other, aecting their ability to map the labels. Although this may have been true for individual infants, such an eect is unlikely to hold across a group of infants. For example, we know that words containing the phonemic segments present in Meb and Pok are prevalent in infants early vocabularies, and thus unlikely to create idiosyncratic preferences. A more parsimonious account is that systematic dierences between the labels at the lexical level inuenced infants ability to map them to novel objects. Swingley & Aslin (2007) obtained a similar eect where the phonological neighbourhoods of novel words aected the ability of infants aged 1; 6 to map novel labels onto novel objects during an ostensive naming procedure. We extend these ndings by demonstrating that phonological neighbourhoods can also impact the use of mutual exclusivity to form novel word mappings. Our ndings also extend the work of Merriman & Schuster (1991) and White & Morgan (2008), by demonstrating that the eect of phonological novelty might extend beyond the immediate naming context to draw upon the full scope of infants lexical knowledge. Although the object sock was not seen or labelled during the experiment, the phonological distance between the two words may nonetheless have interfered with forming a word mapping.4 Infants ability to discriminate between novel words and mispronunciations of familiar words may be critical to the use of mutual exclusivity to learn new words. From as early as 1 ; 4, infants can map a novel label to a novel object, using only the dierence in whether or not an object is name-known as the cue to the mapping. Even before the middle of the second year, infants can learn words in the absence of explicit cues from the speaker, drawing upon their previous learning experiences to guide how they form novel word mappings. Yet, this ability is not without limits. When there is no explicit guidance from the speaker, the infant has to accurately identify novel word
[4] While we have identied sock as the main phonological competitor to pok , other phonological neighbours may have played a role. For example, an image of a clock was named during the second familiar label trial of the experiment. Either the presentation of the label or the priming of infants lexical entry for clock could have enhanced a phonological competitor eect.

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forms which have not already been mapped onto other object categories. One important avenue for future research will be to investigate whether there are developmental changes in how phonological similarity constrains the mutual exclusivity mechanism. Our ndings highlight the importance of the novelty of both the object and the label for successful use of the mutual exclusivity constraint.
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Merriman, W. E. & Bowman, L. L. (1989). The mutual exclusivity bias in childrens word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 54(34) (Serial no. 220). Merriman, W. E., Marazita, J. & Jarvis, L. (1995). Childrens disposition to map new words onto new referents. In M. Tomasello & W. E. Merriman (eds), Beyond names for things : Young childrens acquisition of verbs, 14783. Hillsdale, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Merriman, W. E. & Schuster, J. M. (1991). Young childrens disambiguation of object name reference. Child Development 62(6), 1288301. Mervis, C. B. & Bertrand, J. (1994). Acquisition of the novel name-nameless category (n3c) principle. Child Development 65(6), 164662. Schafer, G. & Plunkett, K. (1998). Rapid word learning by 15-month-olds under tightly controlled conditions. Child Development 69(2), 309320. Schafer, G., Plunkett, K. & Harris, P. L. (1999). Whats in a name? Lexical knowledge drives infants visual preferences in the absence of referential input. Developmental Science 2(2), 18794. Swingley, D. & Aslin, R. N. (2000). Spoken word recognition and lexical representation in very young children. Cognition 76(2), 14766. Swingley, D. & Aslin, R. N. (2007). Lexical competition in young childrens word learning. Cognitive Psychology 54, 99132. White, K. S. & Morgan, J. L. (2008). Sub-segmental detail in early lexical representations. Journal of Memory and Language 59, 11432.

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