ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2013, Vol. 21 ›› Issue (5): 837-846.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2013.00837

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The Social Cognitive Process of Word Learning in Infants

JING Wei;FANG Junming   

  1. (College of Preschool and Special Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China)
  • Received:2012-11-13 Online:2013-05-15 Published:2013-05-15
  • Contact: FANG Junming

Abstract: Associative theory, constraints theory and social-pragmatic theory are three basic theories about how infants learn new words. We outline social-pragmatic evidence with respect to four questions:1) What kinds of social cognitive processes are involved in infants` word learning? 2) How does social-pragmatic theory refute the challenges from associative theory and constraints theory? 3) How is the weight of social cognitive process in infants` word-learning relative to associative learning or lexical constraint mechanism? 4) What difficulties do children with autism encounter in word-learning task via social cues? Current evidence strongly indicates that social cognitive processes play a basic role in infants` word-learning. Finally, some suggestions on future research are proposed.

Key words: word learning, infants, social-pragmatic, associative, constraints