Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Compositional "language of thought" models have recently been proposed to account for a wide range of children's conceptual and linguistic learning. The present work aims to evaluate one of the most basic assumptions of these models: children should have an ability to represent and compose functions. We show that 3.5-4.5 year olds are able to predictively compose two novel functions at significantly above chance levels, even without any explicit training or feedback on the composition itself. We take this as evidence that children at this age possess some capacity for compositionality, consistent with models that make this ability explicit, and providing an empirical challenge to those that do not.
Source: PLoS ONE
Authors: Steven Piantadosi, Richard Aslin
Institution: University of Rochester
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,382
OpenAlex ID: W2509030838