The Shape Bias In Southern Mandarin Children's Word Learning

This empirical study is an attempt to explore the effect of the Shape Bias in southern Mandarin children's word learning. It investigates whether southern Mandarin children of 2 years old and 3 years old are shape-biased in learning words. Specifically, it examines the special conditions in which the shape bias works. It also tests whether age and gender will impact the effect of the shape bias. Finally, it verifies the correlation between attention to shape and the rate of child word learning.The present research consists of three studies, lasting for four weeks. All of the participants are from the same kindergarten located in Zhejiang Province. There are sixty-four 2-year-olds and forty 3-year-olds, with an equal number of boys and girls in each age group. Study 1 aims to explore whether 2-year-old children demonstrate a shape bias in the four conditions (label and kind condition; no label and kind condition; label and name extension condition and no label and no kind condition).Study 2 means to test the shape bias among 3-year-olds in the same four conditions with the same eight sets of stimuli. Study 3 focuses on the exploration of the relationship between the rate of children's acquisition of novel words and their attention to shape.Statistical analysis was conducted by using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 15.0). Through one-way ANOVA, one-samples T test, independent-sample T test, and correlation test, this present research found the following results:(1) Both age groups, 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, have demonstrated shape bias in their word learning. In condition involving labeling and the task of name extension, children showed the strongest shape bias. The children also presented shape bias in conditions when they were asked to categorize things by kind. There is no sign of shape bias in condition involving neither labeling nor categorization.(2) Age has a significant effect on shape bias. The children of three years old were more shape-biased than those of two years old. However, children of different genders did not show significant differences.(3)The rate of children's acquisition of novel words had a positive correlation with their performance in the match-to-sample task. The more attention the children focus on the shape of objects, the more novel words they learned in a certain period of time.Based on these results, it is concluded that southern Mandarin children also learn words with a shape bias. Children rely on the shape of objects so much because they believe shape is a reliable cue for category membership. The tendency of naming objects according to their shape grows during the second year and the third year of early childhood. Children will make great progress in word learning if they master this principle.