Speaker: Jie Ren (Brown University)
Title: Underspecification in Toddlers’ and Adults’ Lexical Representations
Date: Tuesday, November 1st
Time: 1—2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
Theories of underspecification claim that certain unmarked features are empty/underspecified in
lexical representation. This hypothesis predicts asymmetrical judgments in lexical processing. In
particular, noncoronal tokens such as paan can putatively activate a coronal entry taan, but not
vice versa. Studies with both younger infants and adults had found that participants are more
sensitive to noncoronal-to-coronal than to coronal-to-noncoronal changes. In this talk, I will
report a series of studies that examined toddlers and adults sensitivities to these two types of
changes in mispronunciations of familiar words using the visual world paradigm. Unlike the
prediction of underspecification, 19-month-olds and adults showed significant effects in both
directions of mispronunciations, and no asymmetries were attributable to underspecification of
coronal sounds. Toddlers lexical representations appear to be as detailed as those of adults, and
there is a striking developmental continuity between early and mature lexical representations.
Finally, I will report a computational model which suggests that discrepancies between the
current findings and those of previous studies appear to be due to methodological differences that
cast doubt on the validity of claims of psycholinguistic support for underspecification.