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Children benefit from comparing events when learning verbs, but it is unclear whether variability across events is helpfulor harmful. Additionally, no prior study has tested childrens visual attention to specific objects under different variabilityconditions. A Tobii x30-120 tracked 21/2-year-olds(n=36) and 31/2-year-olds(n=34) visual attention as they watchedevents that showed no change (control), events with varied tools (Tool condition) or events with varied affected objects(Affected Object condition) when learning a verb. Children pointed to one of two new events at test; repeated for two moreverbs. Results showed children could extend the verbs, but were more successful with age. Analyses of looking patternsin the learning phase show childrens attention to specific objects varied by condition, and that reduced looking to the toolwas linked to less success at test. Results are important to better understand processes that underlie verb learning, andlanguage development as a whole.

Children learning verbs benefit from seeing multiple events. Study 1 asks whether children can learn verbs when irrelevantevents are present, as is common in everyday contexts. Two- and 3-year-olds saw events in one of three experimentalconditions or one of two control conditions. They successfully extended the verbs only in the experimental conditions.Three-year-olds were more successful than were 2-year-olds, though the younger children could extend verbs. In Study 2,children saw similar events while an eye tracker tracked visual attention to events. Over trials, children looked longer atrelevant than irrelevant events, and maintained their looking to relevant events while increasing their looking to distractorevents. Two-year-olds performed at chance, but 3-year-olds extended the verbs. Together, these results show children canignore irrelevant events and extend new verbs by 3 years. Results reveal mechanisms for learning in everyday contextswhen verbs are heard in varied situations over time.

A basic cognitive ability is the ability to detect patterns in the environment. A key pattern that could be useful in verb learning concerns correspondences between verbs and events. No prior study of verb + event links has included older toddlers or children learning a language other than English. We observed mother-child dyads across two languages/cultures, to ask: how often do young children hear verbs while seeing relevant events in everyday life? In Study 1, monolingual Spanish-speaking dyads (n = 12, 19–36 months old) in Santiago, Chile and Guatemala City, Guatemala were videotaped in their homes in two 45–60-min sessions. Samples were transcribed by fluent Spanish speakers and coded for verbs with referents that could be seen (e.g., forms of “pintar”/“to paint”). For these action verbs, coders then identified whether a relevant event was present; proportions computed to adjust for different amounts of talk. Children produced verbs with events 30% of the time (ave. prop. verb = .30, SE = .09); parents’ rate was 20% (ave. prop. verb = .20, SE = .05) for a combined rate of 50%. In Study 2, the same procedure was repeated with an English-speaking sample in Austin, Texas (n = 12, 23–36 months old), and similar rates of verb-event co-occurrences in the children’s and parents’ speech were found. Specific verbs spoken by children and parents are reported. In sum, across two languages/cultures, action verbs co-occurred with referents approximately 50% of the time, and many co-occurrences fit the child’s actions. These findings are important to inform new empirical studies and guide current verb theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]