Systematic feature variation underlies adults' and children's use of in and on

Kristen Johannes, Colin Wilson, Barbara Landau

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

The spatial prepositions in and on apply to a wide range of containment and support relations, making exhaustive definitions difficult. Theories differ in whether they endorse geometric or functional properties and how these properties are related to meaning and use. This study directly examines the roles of geometric and functional information in adults' and children's use of in and on by developing a large sample of relations situated within a small gradable geometric and functional feature space. We propose that variation in features across items is systematically related to the use of in and on and demonstrate that feature-language relationships change across development: adults' expression use is sensitive to both geometric and functional features, while children's use varies only according to geometric features.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
EditorsAnna Papafragou, Daniel Grodner, Daniel Mirman, John C. Trueswell
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages2429-2434
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196739
StatePublished - 2016
Event38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 - Philadelphia, United States
Duration: Aug 10 2016Aug 13 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016

Conference

Conference38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPhiladelphia
Period8/10/168/13/16

Keywords

  • acquisition
  • language use
  • spatial cognition
  • Spatial language

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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