new word learning

[p.monaghan at psych.york.ac.uk]

Hello,

Gareth Gaskell and colleagues have looked at testing word learning by
investigating cohort effects resulting from when the novel word is entered
into the lexicon. This only works well if your novel words have late
uniqueness points (like cathedruke interfering with cathedral):

Gaskell, M. G., & Dumay, N. (2003). Lexical competition and the
acquisition of novel words. Cognition, 89, 105-132.

Padraic Monaghan

> We are looking for a task or tasks that probe word learning. Ideally we
would
> be able to use the task (or variants of it) in both cognitively impaired
and
> intact kids and adults.
>
> We are *not* looking for episodic memory types of tasks such as
> the AVLT or CVLT, in which the subjects have to remember a list of real
words.
> Rather we want to test learning of new words, ideally in a
> (relatively) naturalistic context.
> Note that fast mapping tasks seem to be good in principle, though in
practice one would likely get ceiling effects for adults.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Best,
>
> Michael Ullman