Year: 2024
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Time words like "yesterday" and "tomorrow" are abstract, and are interpreted relative to the context in which they are produced: the word "tomorrow" refers to a different point in time now than in 24 h. We tested 112 three- to five-year-old English- and Hindi-speaking children on their knowledge of "yesterday" and "tomorrow," which are represented by the same word in Hindi-Urdu: "kal." We found that Hindi learners performed better than English learners when tested on actual past and future events, but that performance for hypothetical events was poor for both groups. Compatible with a "syntactic cues" account, we conclude that syntactic tense information-which is necessary for differentiating "yesterday" from "tomorrow" in Hindi-may play a stronger role in learning the deictic status of these words than mapping of specific words to particular past and future events ("event mapping").
Source: Developmental Science
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13600
Authors: Urvi Maheshwari, David Barner
Institution: University of California San Diego
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4405952601