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This study investigated the effect of overnight sleep on associative novel word learning and examined whether the effects of sleep on word learning are modulated by the provision of semantic information. Seventy-five healthy young adults attended an initial word-learning session followed by a delayed testing session. An interval of overnight sleep (sleep group) or daytime wakefulness (wake group) separated the two sessions. At the initial learning session, participants learned three-word names of 20 novel objects, where half the names comprised a novel word and two semantic attributes (semantic condition), and half comprised a novel word and two meaningless proper names (name condition). Novel word cued-recall was measured at both the initial and the delayed session. Although both groups demonstrated similar cued-recall accuracy at the first session, by the delayed session the sleep group demonstrated superior cued-recall accuracy compared to the wake group. There was no influence of semantics on the sleep-dependent consolidation of the novel words. Overall, these findings suggest that novel words encoded with or without the provision of semantic information can benefit from an overnight sleep period for consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent captioning models are limited in their ability to describe concepts unseen in paired image–sentence pairs. This study presents a framework of multi‐task learning for describing novel words not present in existing image‐captioning datasets. The authors’ framework takes advantage of external sources‐labelled images from image classification datasets, and semantic knowledge extracted from the annotated text. They propose minimising a joint objective which can learn from these diverse data sources and leverage distributional semantic embeddings. When in the inference step they change the BeamSearch step by considering both the caption model and language model enabling the model to generalise novel words outside of image‐captioning datasets. They demonstrate that in the framework by adding an annotated text data which can help the image captioning model to describe images with the right corresponding novel words. Extensive experiments are conducted on both AI Challenger and Microsoft coco (MSCOCO) image captioning datasets of two different languages, demonstrating the ability of their framework to describe novel words such as scenes and objects.

This study reveals associative processes for novel words in a second language (L2) and their referents. Thirty Japanese participants learned associative pairs for novel words in Chinese and pictorial referents (CP), as well as novel words in Chinese and words in Japanese (CJ), against a condition in which they learned only novel words in Chinese (C). After the learning phase, participants conducted two learning condition retrieval tasks for word recognition and three recognition tasks for the source-monitoring of the referents. The correct answers for each recognition task were provided to participants after each trial. Although the correct answers in all conditions increased in both the recognition and learning condition retrieval tasks, there was no significant difference among conditions. In contrast, the response times of the correct trials in all recognition tasks and the first learning condition retrieval tasks were faster for the CP condition than the CJ condition. Additionally, in the second learning condition retrieval task, missed items in associative conditions (CP and CJ conditions) were judged to be learned items more often than unlearned items, whereas missed items in the non-associative condition (C condition) were judged to be unlearned items more than learned items. These findings suggest that pictures contribute to the recognition and retrieval speeds of associations between novel words in L2 and referents, and that associative learning of L2 words and referents could enhance more familiarity effects than the learning of L2 words only.

Word learning is a crucial aspect of human development that depends on the formation and consolidation of novel memory traces. In this paper, we critically review the behavioural research on sleep-related lexicalization of novel words in healthy young adult speakers. We first describe human memory systems, the processes underlying memory consolidation, then we describe the complementary learning systems account of memory consolidation. We then review behavioural studies focusing on novel word learning and sleep-related lexicalization in monolingual samples, while highlighting their relevance to three main theoretical questions. Finally, we review the few studies that have investigated sleep-related lexicalization in L2 speakers. Overall, while several studies suggest that sleep promotes the gradual transformation of initially labile traces into more stable representations, a growing body of work suggests a rich variety of time courses for novel word lexicalization. Moreover, there is a need for more work on sleep-related lexicalization patterns in varied populations, such as L2 speakers and bilingual speakers, and more work on individual differences, to fully understand the boundary conditions of this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the onomasiological question of which words speakers actually use and produce when trying to convey an intended meaning. This is not limited to selecting the best-fitting available existing word, but also includes word formation, the coinage of novel words. In the first two experiments, we introduce the taboo game paradigm in which participants were instructed to produce a single-word substitution for different words so that others can later identify them. Using distributional semantic models with the capability to produce quantitative representations for existing and novel word responses, we find that (a) responses tend to be semantically close to the targets and (b) existing words were represented closer than novel words, but (c) even novel compounds were often closer than the targets' free associates. In a final third experiment, we find that other participants are more likely to guess the correct original word (a) for responses closer to the original targets, and (b) for novel compound responses as compared to existing word responses. This shows that the production of both existing and novel words can be accurately captured in a unified computational framework of the semantic mechanisms driving word choice. • We investigate which words exactly speakers use to express an intended meaning. • In the taboo game paradigm, speakers substitute a target with a single other word. • Participants are allowed or required to also produce novel words. • Existing and novel word responses are well captured in a single distributional framework. • Responses not well captured by this framework are also less informative for other speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis that individual experience affects the formation and processing of conceptual representations is controversially debated. Previous training studies with novel tool-like objects have found experience effects on conceptual representations as measured in tasks requiring the processing of object pictures. This study instead explored the neural processing of training-induced word meaning of novel object names. We asked whether the type of experience gained during object concept formation specifically modulates object name processing. In three training sessions with novel tool-like objects, two groups of healthy participants gained either active or observational manipulation experience as well as purely visual experience, while learning pseudowords serving as object names. In an fMRI session after training, participants were presented with the learned novel object names in a lexical decision task. Results revealed that processing novel object names in comparison to meaningless pseudowords elicits a word-like activation pattern in frontal, parietal and temporal regions known to underlie lexical-semantic processing, thus suggesting word meaning formation. Experience-specific modulations did not emerge as regional activation effects. However, a post-hoc analysis revealed that the type of experience (manipulation versus visual) as well as the way, in which the manipulation was learned (active versus observational) led to specific functional connectivity increases between semantic regions and neuronal assemblies in brain areas coding for object manipulation and related visuospatial information. These results suggest that the emergence of conceptual processing for novel object names might be grounded in functional brain networks specifically coding for the experience with their referents. • We assigned names to novel objects undergoing different sensorimotor training types. • Training-induced lexicality: processing novel object names engages semantic network. • The semantic network shows training-specific functional connectivity patterns. • Novel word encoding results from both lexicalization and sensorimotor grounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concreteness effect (CE) describes a processing advantage for concrete over abstract words. Electrophysiologically, the CE manifests in higher N400 and N700 amplitudes for concrete words. The contribution of the stimulus-inherent imageability to the electrophysiological correlates of the CE is not yet fully unraveled. This EEG study focused on the role of imageability irrespective of concreteness by examining the effects of training-induced visual imageability on the processing of novel words. In two training sessions, 21 healthy participants learned to associate novel words with pictures of novel objects as well as electron-microscopical structures and were additionally familiarized with novel words without any picture association. During a post-training EEG session, participants categorized trained novel words with or without picture association, together with real concrete and abstract words. Novel words associated with novel object pictures during the training elicited a higher N700 than familiarized novel words without picture-association. Crucially, this training-induced N700 effect resembled the CE found for real words. However, a CE on the N400 was found for real words, but no effect of imageability in novel words. The results suggest that the N400 CE for real words depends on the integration of multiple semantic features, while mere visual imageability might contribute to the CE in the N700 time window.

This paper examines changes in the accent class affiliation of c. 1900 words from Middle Korean into the modern South Kyengsang dialect. The data present the profile of a canonical analogical change: words are attracted to larger lexical classes and words of lower token frequency are more likely to change their affiliation. Several properties of the syllable onset and coda as well as syllable weight are shown to bias a word to particular accent classes. A novel word experiment suggests that speakers have tacit knowledge of some of these phonological biases but not others. The paper considers whether these biases can explain the default accent assigned to English loanwords and whether they can be modeled with weighted constraints in a Maxent grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and novel word reading. Fourth-grade students were assessed on standardized measures of word identification, decoding, and receptive vocabulary, as well as on an experimental word identification measure using words that students in the fourth grade are unlikely to have seen before in print. In the experimental measure, pairs of words were matched on printed frequency and orthographic pattern (with a variety of spelling patterns represented), but differed in terms of the frequency of expected oral exposure for children (i.e., higher vs. lower). Results showed that students' receptive vocabulary knowledge was significantly related to performance on both the standardized and experimental measures of word identification, even after accounting for the substantial amount of variance explained by decoding ability. Students performed better reading the words with higher expected oral frequencies on the experimental task than on those items with lower expected oral frequencies. The results point to the benefits, albeit modest, of oral word familiarity for reading words when they are first encountered in print and suggest that this top-down effect is not limited to exception words, as has been suggested, but has a wider scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study investigated the role of spelling in phonological variant processing. Participants learned the auditory forms of potential reduced variants of novel French words (e.g., /plur/) and their associations with pictures of novel objects over 4days. After the fourth day of training, the spelling of each novel word was presented once. Half the words were spelled with an orthographic representation of the schwa (i.e., “e”), half were not. In the subsequent naming tasks, participants produced more schwa variants for novel words whose spelling contained an “e”. In addition, reduced variants with an “e” in spelling and an onset cluster attested word-internally in non-schwa words were produced with longer latencies than the same items whose spelling did not contain an “e”. Finally, in a recognition task where participants had to decide whether a given spoken item was part of the experimental stimuli trained the previous days, participants were more likely to say yes to a schwa variant when the spelling for the given word corresponded to this variant. These results show that a single exposure to spelling following extensive phonological learning can change the way speakers and listeners store and process words with phonological variants both in production and recognition tasks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examined the lexical representations and psycholinguistic mechanisms underlying the production and recognition of novel words with two pronunciation variants in French. Participants first learned novel schwa words (e.g., /ʃənyk/), which varied in their alternating status (i.e., whether these words were learned with one or two variants) and, for alternating words, in the frequency of their variants. They were then tested in picture-naming (free or induced) and recognition memory tasks (i.e., deciding whether spoken items were learned during the experiment or not). Results for free naming show an influence of variant frequency on responses, more frequent variants being produced more often. Moreover, our data show an effect of the alternating status of the novel words on naming latencies, with longer latencies for alternating than for nonalternating novel words. These induced naming results suggest that both variants are stored as lexical entries and compete during the lexeme selection process. Results for recognition show an effect of variant frequency on reaction times and no effect of variant type (i.e., schwa versus reduced variant). Taken together, our findings suggest that participants both comprehend and produce novel French schwa words using two lexical representations, one for each variant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ability to form a 'quick, initial, partial understanding of word's meaning' and thereby to learn and retain new words with only minimal exposure is known as Fast Mapping. Studies exploring fast mapping abilities especially in toddlers are limited, therefore research in this area would be highly valuable in understanding the way children accomplish the task of learning new words that add to their developing lexicon. Thus the present study was undertaken to investigate the fast mapping skills of toddlers by examining the effect of practice on the accessibility of the words in the lexical memory. Two groups of typically developing Kannada speaking children between the age of 16 to 20 months participated in the study. These children were taught the names of 24 unfamiliar objects over twelve training and testing sessions spread over a span of twenty four days. The amount of practice children had with individual words varied as a function of session. The experimental group underwent training and testing for all the sessions, while the control group were trained and tested during the first and last sessions only. The accuracy of identification, at every session was tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis. The results revealed that there was significant difference between the high practice words (words exposed to during all the sessions) of session '1' and Low practice words (words exposed to during the last session) of session '12' in both the groups. However, between the two groups, the performance on low practice words was not significant. Thus it can be concluded that fast mapping does occur in toddlers and learning some words primes the system to learn a novel set of words. Nevertheless, the present results should be interpreted with caution because of modest sample size considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain the fact that children avoid using regular plurals in modifiers of English compounds by three years, it has been argued that level-ordering constrains all their compounds (e.g, Gordon, 1985). If so, children should avoid regular plurals in ungrammatical compounds like Verb-Object and Verb-Object-er which they use while acquiring grammatical Object-Verb-er compounds (like ‘truck driver’). Children between 3 and 5 years were asked to form novel compounds describing machines acting on objects. The first study included 42 English monolingual children and the second study 36 French-English bilingual children. Both groups of children used significantly more regular plurals in ungrammatical compounds than in grammatical compounds. These results suggest that the avoidance of regular plurals is learned in conjunction with learning the kinds of compounds English allows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the cues used in acquisition of two semantically similar structures that are ordered differently in French and English: adjectival phrases and compound nouns. One possible prediction is that children attend primarily to meaning, so they should order both structures similarly. Another is that children attend primarily to structure, so they should learn these structures independently. Two kinds of data were obtained from eight 4-year old bilinguals: (1) spontaneous production and (2) experimental elicitation. The children were nearly perfect in their ordering of adjectival phrases, but less so in compounds. These results conform to neither prediction, leaving open the question of which cues children use in acquisition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The concreteness effect (CE) describes a processing advantage for concrete over abstract words. Electrophysiologically, the CE manifests in higher N400 and N700 amplitudes for concrete words. The contribution of the stimulus-inherent imageability to the electrophysiological correlates of the CE is not yet fully unraveled. This EEG study focused on the role of imageability irrespective of concreteness by examining the effects of training-induced visual imageability on the processing of novel words. In two training sessions, 21 healthy participants learned to associate novel words with pictures of novel objects as well as electron-microscopical structures and were additionally familiarized with novel words without any picture association. During a post-training EEG session, participants categorized trained novel words with or without picture association, together with real concrete and abstract words. Novel words associated with novel object pictures during the training elicited a higher N700 than familiarized novel words without picture-association. Crucially, this training-induced N700 effect resembled the CE found for real words. However, a CE on the N400 was found for real words, but no effect of imageability in novel words. The results suggest that the N400 CE for real words depends on the integration of multiple semantic features, while mere visual imageability might contribute to the CE in the N700 time window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]