Details of a Researcher - Imai, Mutsumi

Papers - Imai, Mutsumi

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Sound symbolism processing is lateralized to the right temporal region in the prelinguistic infant brain

Yang J., Asano M., Kanazawa S., Yamaguchi M., Imai M.

Scientific Reports (Scientific Reports) 9 ( 1 ) 2019.12

© 2019, The Author(s). Sound symbolism, which is the systematic and non-arbitrary link between a word and its meaning, has been suggested to bootstrap language acquisition in infants. However, it is unclear how sound symbolism is processed in the infants’ brain. To address this issue, we investigated the cortical response in 11-month-old infants in relation to sound-symbolic correspondences using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Two types of stimuli were presented: a novel visual stimulus (e.g., a round shape) followed by a novel auditory stimulus that either sound-symbolically matched (moma) or mismatched (kipi) the shape. We found a significant hemodynamic increase in the right temporal area, when the sound and the referent sound were symbolically matched, but this effect was limited to the moma stimulus. The anatomical locus corresponds to the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (rSTS), which is thought to process sound symbolism in adults. These findings suggest that prelinguistic infants have the biological basis to detect cross-modal correspondences between word sounds and visual referents.

Access to Document (DOI)

Cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound symbolism in novel words elicited by locomotion videos in Japanese and English

Saji N., Akita K., Kantartzis K., Kita S., Imai M.

PLoS ONE (PLoS ONE) 14 ( 7 ) 2019

© 2019 Saji et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This paper demonstrates a new quantitative approach to examine cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound symbolism in languages. Unlike most previous studies taking a hypothesis-testing approach, we employed a data mining approach to uncover unknown sound-symbolic correspondences in the domain of locomotion, without limiting ourselves to pre-determined sound-meaning correspondences. In the experiment, we presented 70 locomotion videos to Japanese and English speakers and asked them to create a sound symbolically matching word for each action. Participants also rated each action on five meaning variables. Multivariate analyses revealed cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound-meaning correspondences within a single semantic domain. The present research also established that a substantial number of sound-symbolic links emerge from conventionalized form-meaning mappings in the native languages of the speakers.

Access to Document (DOI)

Human locomotion in languages: Constraints on moving and meaning. .

IMAI MUTSUMI

Journal of Memory & Language. (Jul2014, Vol. , -123. 17p. .) 74 107 - 123 2014.07

The influence of grammatical gender on German speakers'reasoning about biological properties of animals.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Talk presented at a colloquium at Bangor University (Bangor University,Dapartment of psychology and the center for Bilingualism research) 2011.12

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

Bootstrapping mechanism in young chilidren's verb learning.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Talk presented at a colloquium at Northwestern University SILC center (Northwestern university SILC center) 2011.11

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

How do nominal classification systems affect thought?:The case of classifiers and grammatical gender.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Keio Global COE International Symposium (Keio University) 2011.03

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

Relation between count/mass syntax and the ontological concept about individuation:From a psychological perspective.

IMAI MUTSUMI

The city University of Hong Kong (The city university of Hong Kong) 2011.03

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

Influesnce of classifiers on conceptual structure in children and adults.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Nanyang Technological Unversity (Singapore) 2011.02

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

Who is crossing where?:Infants'discrimination of figure and grounds in events.

Goksun,T.,Hirsh-Pasek,K.,Golinkoff,R.,Imai,M.,Konishi,H.,& Okada,H.

Cognition 121 176-195 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Object Similarity Bootstraps Young Children to Action-Based Verb Extensions

Haryu,E.,Imai,M.,& Okada.H

Child Development 82 ( 2 ) 674–686 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Japanese sound symbolism facilitates word learning in English speaking children

Kantartzis,K.,Imai,M.,& Kita,S.

Cognitive Science 35 575-586 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Word learning does not end at fast-mapping: Evolution of verb meanings through reorganization of an entire semantic domain

Saji,N.,Imai,M.,Saalbach,H.,Zhang,Y.,Shu,H.,& Okada,H.

Cognition 118 ( 1 ) 45-61 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The relation between linguistic categories and cognition:The case of numeral classifiers.

Saalbach,H.,& Imai,M.

Language and Cognitive Processes 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Mimetic vowel harmony in Japanese

Akita,K.,Imai,M.,Saji,N.,Kantartzis,K.,& Kita,S.

Japan/Korean Linguistic (CSLI Publications) 20 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

The role of sound symbolism in early word learning

IMAI MUTSUMI

the workshop “Sound Symbolism: Challenging the Arbitrariness of Language” (Emory University) 2010.03

Single Work

Relation between count/mass syntax and the ontological concept about individuation: From a psychological perspective.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Lecture given at a colloquium sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and Department of Philosophy (the Department of Linguistics and Department of Philosophy) 2010.03

Single Work

Relation between Grammatical Categories and Thought: Not Whether, but When and How

IMAI MUTSUMI

Department of sychology, McMaster University (Department of sychology, McMaster University) 2010.03

Single Work

ことばの意味とコミュニケーション　―母語と外国語の場合―

IMAI MUTSUMI

　広島大学「育む・学ぶ」ことばの脳科学プロジェクト研究センター　シンポジウム　「言語とコミュニケーションの教育と脳科学」招待講演 (広島大学「育む・学ぶ」ことばの脳科学プロジェクト研究センター) 2010.02

Single Work

子どもが学び続ける原動力を創るには

IMAI MUTSUMI

「学び続けるとは何か」招待講演とパネルディスカッション (学芸大学付属世田谷小学校) 2010.02

Single Work

外国語学習研究への認知心理学の貢献：語意と語彙の学習の本質とは何か

IMAI MUTSUMI

現代の認知心理学５: 発達と教育 (北大路書房) 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work

Children learn sound symbolic words better: Evolutionary vestige of sound symbolic protolanguage

IMAI MUTSUMI

World Scientific 206-213 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Categories in mind and categories in language: Are classifier categories reflection of the mind?

IMAI MUTSUMI

Words and the mind: How words capture human experience (Oxford University Press,New York) 138-164 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Lexicalization Patterns and the World-to-Words Mapping

IMAI MUTSUMI

Words and the mind: How words capture human experience. (Oxford University Press) 29-57 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

A developmental shift from similar to language specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of English, Spanish, and Japanese

IMAI MUTSUMI

Cognition (USA) ( 114 ) 299-319 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Are Chinese and German children taxonomic, thematic or shape biased?: Influence of classifiers and cultural contexts.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Frontiers in Psychology 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work

人はことばの意味をどのように表象しているか：脳科学から見えてきたこと

IMAI MUTSUMI

脳科学リテラシー部門　第６回研究会　「言語と脳科学」招待講演 (玉川大学脳科学研究所) 2009.10

Single Work

言語が認知発達にもたらすもの：言語は子どもをどのように変えるのか

IMAI MUTSUMI

エドワード・サピア協会　第24 回年次大会招待講演 (エドワード・サピア協会) 2009.10

Single Work

Novel Noun and Verb Learning in Chinese, Japanese, and English Preschoolers

IMAI MUTSUMI

the invited symposium “Learning nouns and verbs.” The Eleventh Annual International Conference of the JapaneseSociety for Language Sciences 2009.07

Research paper (other academic), Single Work

言語と感覚の間のことば：言語獲得における擬態語の役割と擬態語の脳内処理

IMAI MUTSUMI

玉川大学GCOE特別講義「脳と心の対話」シリーズ 2009.04

Single Work

Role of sound symbolism in language evolution and language development: implications from a child corpus study and a brain imaging study. Invited talk given at the workshop “Universals of sound-symbolism

IMAI MUTSUMI

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Max Planck Institute) 2009.02

Single Work

Some methodological explorations for uncovering universal sound symbolism in the motion domain. nvited talk given at the workshop “Universals of sound-symbolism

IMAI MUTSUMI

invited talk given at the workshop “Universals of sound-symbolism.” Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Max Planck Institute) 2009.02

Single Work

子どもはどのようにレキシコンを構築するのか：即時マッピングと意味の再編成

IMAI MUTSUMI

北海道大学GCOE講演会 (北海道大学) 2009.01

Single Work

Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning

IMAI MUTSUMI

Cognition 109 54-65 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

事物の認識の普遍性と言語，文化の影響

IMAI MUTSUMI

こころとことば：進化と認知科学のアプローチ (東京大学出版会) 191-210 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

人はなぜ言語を持つのか－言語学習における推論を可能にする認知基盤

IMAI MUTSUMI

『脳科学と哲学の出会い:　脳・生命・心』 (玉川大学出版部) 42-57 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Talking about Walking: Biomechanics and the Language of Locomotion

IMAI MUTSUMI

Psychological Science ( 19 ) 232-240 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Novel noun and verb learning in Chinese-, English-, and Japanese-speaking children.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Child Development 79 979-1000 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

「対称性」へのコメンタリー：言語の成立にとって対称性はたまごかにわとりか

IMAI MUTSUMI

認知科学 15 470-481 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Lexicalization Patterns and the World-to-Words Mapping

IMAI MUTSUMI

Words and the world: How words capture human experience (New York:Oxford University Press) 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

Categories in mind and categories in language: Are classifier categories reflection of the mind?

IMAI MUTSUMI

Words and the world: How words capture human experience (New York: Oxford University Press) 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

語意学習のメカニズム

IMAI MUTSUMI

神経心理学２０ ( ２ ) 125-135 2004

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work

(　University of British Colombiaにて) 2002.08

Is verb learning easier than noun learning for Japanese children? : 3-year-old Japanese children7s knowledge about object names and action name.

'Etsuko　Haryu, Hiroyuki Okada'

(Proceedings of the 26th Boston University Conference of Language Development.) ( 1 ) 324-335 2002

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

'Whether there is an advantage for noun learning over verb learning has been much debated. To examine this issue, we tested whether it is easier for Japanese children to learn the meaning of a novel verb than of a novel noun. Being an argument-dropping as well as SOV language, Japanese has properties that are said to be advantageous for verb learning. A novel noun or verb was introduced while children were seeing a video. How Japanese children map and generalize the word was then tested. The Japanese 3-year-olds mapped a novel noun to a novel object in a dynamic scene, and generalized it to the same object even though it appeared in a different action. In contrast, although the 3-year-olds knew that verbs refer to category of actions, their generalization of verbs was overly conservative, not yet understanding that a verb should be generalized by the sameness of the action per se, and the object in the action can be changed. These findings suggest learning of verb meanings is more difficult than noun meanings.'

As time goesby: Evidence for two systems in processing space-time metaphors.

'Dedre Gentner, Lera Boroditzky'

Journal of Language and Cognitive Processes 17 ( 5 ) 537-565 2002

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

'Temporal language is often couched in spatial metaphors. English has been claimed to have two space a time metaphoric systems: the ego-moving metaphor, wherein the observer's context progresses along the time-line towards the future, and the time-moving metaphor, wherein time is conceived of as a river or conveyor belt on which events are moving from the future to the past. In three experiments, we investigated the psychological status of these metaphors by asking subjects to carry out temporal inferences stated in terms of spatial metaphors. In Experiment 1, we found that subjects were slowed in their processing when the assertions shifted from one spatial metaphoric system to the other. In Experiment 2, we determined that this cost of shifting could not be attributed to local lexical factors. In Experiment 3, we again found this metaphor consistency effect in a naturalistic version of the study in which we asked commonsense time questions of passengers at an airport.'

A Computational Model for Children's Language Acquisition using Inductive Logic Programming.

Ikuo Kobayashi, Koichi Furukawa, Tomonobu Ozaki, Mutsumi Imai

Linkoping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science 6 ( 018 ) 2001.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

幼児の語彙獲得に対して帰納論理プログラミング(ILP)に基づく立ち上げモデルを提案している．主たる特徴は以下の4点である．第一に，いかなる後天的な知識にも依存しない語彙学習立ち上げ過程の位置付け．第二に，この過程について近年認知科学によって見出だされた学習バイアスの導入．第三に，互いに依存し合う語内包学習と概念階層学習の共発展メカニズムの検討．第四に，ヒトの脳との機能的類似性の検討，である．

How Japanese children learn meanings of nouns and verbs

今井むつみ

Center for the Study of Reading and the Department of Asian Studies 2001.03

Single Work

Learning proper nouns and common nouns without clues from syntax.

Etsuko Haryu, Mutsumi Imai

Child Development 72 ( 3 ) 787-803 2001

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Syntax has been noted to play an important role in word learning in English; it distinguishes the fundamental conceptual difference between individuals (coded as proper nouns), nonindividuals (coded as mass nouns), and classes of individuals (coded as count nouns). The Japanese language does not have grammatical markers flagging the distinctions between count nouns and mass nouns, between proper nouns and common nouns, or between singulars and plurals. How Japanese 2- and 4-yr-olds assign meaning to novel nouns associated with familiar and unfamiliar animals and inanimate objects was studied in this paper. When a novel label was given to an unfamiliar object, children assumed it to be a name for a basic-level object category whether the referent was an animal or an inanimate object. If the named object already had an established name, and if the object was an inanimate object, the children mapped the noun to a subordinate category. When the named object was an animal, however, they tended to interpret the label as a proper name. These results demonstrate that in the absence of useful information from syntax, 2-yr-old Japanese children are able to fast map a noun to its meaning by coordinating word-learning biases and other available sources of information. !

Fast-mapping is more difficult for verbs than for nouns: Ebidence from Japanese children

Etsuko Hryu, Imai Mutsumi

Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development 2000.04

Joint Work

Learning proper nouns and common nouns without syntax by Japanese children

今井むつみ

Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development 2000.04

Single Work

Fast-mapping is more difficult for verbs than for nouns: Ebidence from Japanese children

Etsuko Hryu, Imai Mutsumi

Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development 2000.04

Joint Work

レキシコンの発達：子どもはどのようにしてことばを学習するか

今井むつみ

音声言語処理研究会 2000.02

Single Work

レキシコンの発達：子どもはどのようにしてことばを学習するか

今井むつみ

音声言語情報処理 30 ( 13 ) 63-68 2000.02

Single Work

サピア・ワーフ仮説再考：思考形成における言語の役割、その相対性と普遍性

IMAI MUTSUMI

心理学研究７１（５） 415-433 2000

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

人間の知の性質を理解するうえで言語の存在が思考にどのような影響を及ぼすかの問題について考察した。言語が思考に大きく影響を与え，言語に依存しない生得的制約と相互作用をしながら思考を形成していく観点ではサピア・ワーフ仮説が支持される。また思考が異なる言語の話者の間で異なるか否かという狭義の伝統的な観点では，答は思考のどの側面を問題にするか，どの認知領域を対象にし，その認知領域において環境自身の構造がどれだけ直接的に人間の認知に訴えてくるかに依存することも考えられる。今後の研究の方向性としては人間の生得的・普遍的認知機構が環境の呈する知覚情報等とどのように相互作用するのかを探っていくことである。

1999.09

Research paper (scientific journal)

Controlling the application of mutual exclusivity : How do Japanese children assign a meaning og a novel word for a familiar artifact?

E. Haryu, M. Imai

The 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Sciences 1999.07

Joint Work

The meanings of FRONT/BACK/LEFT/RIGHT

M. Imai, T. Nakanishi, H. Miyasita and S. Isizaki

認知科学 6 207-225 1999.06

Joint Work

Constraint on word learning constraints.

IMAI MUTSUMI

Japanese Psychological Research 41(1) 5-20 1999

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Discusses the general agreement among researchers that word learning in young children is guided by so-called 'word-learning principles.' However, these principles may make it difficult to learn a substantial part of the lexicon unless they are appropriately controlled. To learn proper names, the taxonomic assumption and/or the shape bias must be overridden; to learn names for substances, withdrawal of the whole-object assumption and/or the shape bias is required; and to learn lexical hierarchies, the mutual exclusivity assumption must be suspended. In certain languages, syntax can provide useful information in this situation. For example, if a novel noun is given to an object for which the name is known in the syntactic frame ''This is X,'' English-speaking children may assume the noun to be a proper noun, and this will help them override the taxonomic assumption. However, this information is not available to Japanese children, since the Japanese language does not have grammatical markers to flag the distinction between count nouns and mass nouns, or the distinction between proper nouns and common nouns. The author discusses how Japanese children get around this problem.

Controling the application of the mutual exclusivity assumption in the acquisition of lexical hierarchies

Etsuko Haryu, Mutsumi Imai

Japanese Psychological Research 41(1) 21-34 1999

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The mutual exclusivity assumption is a very useful constraint for learning basic-level category terms: children can map a novel word on to an object whose label has not yet been learned. It can also help children exclude a newly labeled object from the extension of an originally overextended old category and establish a new category. However, to learn words other than basic-level category terms, for example subordinate and superordinate category names, this assumption must be overridden. To explore under what circumstances children adhere to mutual exclusivity and under what circumstances children override this principle, two series of studies are discussed. One series demonstrated 3.5-yr-old children's failure to consider salient contextual/pragmatic information due to their adherence to mutual exclusivity. In contrast, the second series demonstrated that 36-mo-old children, by using shape similarity, could override mutual exclusivity and establish a subordinate category. By considering the discrepancy between the two studies, the metamechanism by which young children control the application of mutual exclusivity is examined.

Heuristics in learning classifiers: The implications from the acquisition of the classifier system on the nature of lexical acquisition.

Nobuko Uchida, Mutsumi Imai

Japanese Psychological Research 41(1) 50-69 1999

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Classifiers are like nouns in that they classify entities in the world into lexical categories. However, the lexical nature of the classifier system is very different from that of nouns.The authors discuss how Japanese and Chinese children learn the meanings of classifiers, and on how classifier　acquisition is different from noun acquisition, and what the prerequisites are for spontaneous extracting the meanings of classifiers. It is shown that children are very conservative in assigning meaning to classifiers. The pace of learning largely depends on semantic complexity, across languages and within each language.

The meanings of FRONT /BACK /LEFT /RIGHT.

Nakanishi, Takuya., Miyashita, Honami., Kidachi, Yoichi. Ishizaki & Shunm Mutsumi Imai

認知科学６（２） 207-225 1999

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The use of spacial expressions always involves some degree of ambiguity. Some of the ambiguity is quantitative. Two different perspective systems underlie the semantics of basic spatial terms such as mae, ushiro, hidari, migi (FRONT/BACK/LEFT/RIGHT). One system uses the viewer as the frame of reference (the deictic system), while the other system takes one object as the frame of reference and describes other objects with respect to this reference object (the intrinsic system). In this research, by setting up an experiment using a 3-D model space in a computer display, we empirically examined how people determined the assignment of front/back/right/left in various contexts including different types of referent objects as well as different orientations these objects were placed with respect to the perspective of the viewer. We found that at least four factors, (1)characteristics of the reference object; (2) orientation of the reference object with respect to the viewer: (3) position of the referred object with respect to the reference object; (4) method of presentation, are involved when people select one perspective system over the other, and furthermore, there is a complex interaction among these factors.

Word learning without aid from syntax: How do Japanese children learn proper nouns and common nouns?

Etsuko Haryu, Mutsumi Imai

The Proceedings of the 23rd Boston University Conference on Language Development 277-288 1999

Research paper (conference, symposium, etc.), Joint Work, Accepted

Children are known to use multiple sources of knowledge to constrain word meanings. Among these sources, syntactic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and familiarity have been noted as particularly important. For example, when a novel count noun is given to an unfamiliar object, English-speaking children interpret the noun as referring to an object category. When a label is given to a familiar object in the “This is X” frame, children tend to interpret it as either a proper name or a property name depending on whether the referent object is animate or inanimate (Hall, 1991, 1994; Gelman & Taylor, 1984). However, in Japanese, this clue from syntax is unavailable since the Japanese language does not have grammatical markers flagging the distinction between count nouns and mass nouns or between proper nouns and common nouns. How Japanese 2- and 4-year-olds assign meaning to novel nouns that were associated with familiar and unfamiliar animals and inanimate objects was studied in this research. The results demonstrated that in the absence of useful information from syntax, Japanese children are able to fast-map a noun to its meaning by elegantly coordinating word learning biases and other available sources of information.

1999

「前」「後」「左」「右」の意味－認知心理学的アプローチによる考察－

今井むつみ, 石崎　俊

Keio SFC Review 4 72-79 1999

Joint Work

A Model of Children's Vocabulary Acquisition using Inductive Logic Programming

K Furukawa, I Kobayasi, T Ozaki, M Imai

The 2nd International Conference on Discovery Science 1999

Joint Work

機械学習システムによる幼児の言語獲得のモデル化

今井むつみ, 小林　郁夫，古川　康一，尾崎　知伸

第13回　人工知能学会　全国大会 1999

Joint Work

認知発達

(平凡社) 1998

Single Work

1997.03

Research paper (scientific journal)

ことばの学習の制約の起源

認知科学 4 75-98 1997

Single Work, Accepted

Researchers have agreed that children learn words in a principled (e.g., Carey, 1982; Markman, 1989). Several important word learning principles, including the whole object assumption, the taxonomic assumption, the shape bias, the mutual exclusivity assumption, have been suggested (Markman, 1989, 1992; Landau, Smith, & Jones, 1998; Imai, Gentner, & Uchida, 1994). However, there has been an unsettled debate in the literature as to the exact nature of these principles, particularly with respect to their origin. In this paper, I discuss the origin of the whole object assumption and taxonomic assumption, especially in light of innateness and domain-specificity. Reviewing the literature of children’s early word production and comprehension and that of crosslinguistic comparison of early vocabulary development, I suggest that the whole-object and taxonomic assumptions are likely to be universally applied independent of the structure of linguistic input but that these principles are not necessarily applied at the onset of word learning. I argue that it is not likely that the whole-object and taxonomic assumptions are innately specified as abstract rules. I argue that these word-learning principles are formed from a combination of domain general, basic cognitive facilities (such as detecting similarity among entities and putting similar things together to form categories, and extracting and generating abstract rules from a small amount of experience) and domain specific, pre-linguistically available ontological knowledge about the world. Finally, I evaluate the necessity of the whole-object assumption and the taxonomic assumption in the face of the position that social-pragmatic force is sufficient to guide word learning. Keywords: word learning principle (語意学習原理), whole object assumption (事物全体原理), taxonomic assumption(事物カテゴリー原理), innateness(生得性), domain-specificity (領域固有性)

A crosslinguistic study on constraints on early word meaning: Linguistic influence vs. universal ontology

Dedre Gentner, Mutsumi Imai

Cognition 62 169-200 1997

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Asymmetry in the taxonomic assumption: word learning vs. property induction

IMAI MUTSUMI

Child Language Research Forum 27 157-167 1996

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

This research has examined whether there is an asymmetry in children’s and adults’ notion of “likeness” in making inferences about the extension of a novel word and in making inferences about novel properties of objects. Recent research studying children’s word learning has suggested that children of preschool age rely on shape similarity rather than taxonomic relations when the two aspects are separated (e.g., Baldwin, 1992; Imai, Gentner & Uchida, 1994). In contrast, a body of work by Gelman has shown persuasively that even 2-year-olds project a property of an object onto other objects sharing the same label in spite of misleading perceptual similarity. This discrepancy between the results from the word extension studies and those from Gelman’s induction studies suggest that children use different criteria in determining “likeness” an across two situations (cf. Gelman, Coleman & MaCoby, 1986; Gelman & Medin, 1993). To examine this, four studies were conducted with Japanese 5-year-olds and adults on the item sets in which conceptual similarity and perceptual similarity conflicted . Children as well as adults shifted relative weight placed between shape similarity and conceptual similarity across the word learning task and the property inference task, relying on shape similarity more heavily in the former task. I argue that this asymmetry reflects children’s appreciation that shape has strong predictive power for inferring category-membership but not for inferring shared properties. Furthermore, the results suggested that children know how the relative weight between shape and conceptual similarity should be shifted across natural kinds and artifacts. I conclude that children’s word meaning and concept learning is theory-driven and principled not because they can bypass perceptual similarity but because they know, just like adults, when they should and should not rely on perceptual similarity.

On the equivalence of superoridinate concepts. Cognition

Edward Wisniewski, Lyman Casey,Mutsumi Imai

Cognition 60 269-298 1996

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Psychological studies of superordinates have generally treated them as equivalent. However, many languages distinguish mass superordinates (e.g., clothing) from count superordinates (e.g., vehicle). In the present paper, experimental evidence is presented which suggests that the two types of superordinates are conceptually distinct as well. One study showed that the members of mass superordinates more often co-occur. A second study showed that people more often interact with the members of mass superordinates in temporal proximity whereas people primarily interact with single members of count superordinates on a specific occasion. Also, properties that characterize an individual are more salient aspect of count superordinates. These findings imply that mass superordinates refer to unindividuates groups of objects, united by spatial and functional contiguity. Two other studies supported this hypothesis by showing that the class inclusion relation between a single object and a category is stronger for count superordinates. Taken together, the findings suggest that mass superordinates are not true taxonomic categories. We relate the findings to previous views of superordinates and to the count/mass distinction in general.

幼児における助数詞の獲得過程 --- 生物カテゴリーの形成と助数詞付与ルールの獲得

IMAI MUTSUMI

教育心理学研究 44 126-135 1996

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

This research examined the acquisition of human/animal numerical classifier categories in preschool children. In Experiment 1, using an error detection paradigm, we examined the developmental change of the knowledge 150 children possessed about classifiers. Overall, even the youngest group of children (early 4-years-olds) were aware of the grammatical function of classifiers, but they did not know the semantic criteria for each classifier category until around their late 5 years of age. Experiment 2 examined 60 4- and 5-years-olds who had not shown the sensitivity for the semantic rule dividing the hiki (small animal) category and the tou (large animal) category. The results showed that the 5-years-olds only, could spontaneously generate the correct rules and apply it to new items only through hearing adults’ use of classifiers. Based on such results, the interplay between the linguistic input, grammar and extra-linguistic cognitive categories in acquisition of classifiers was discussed. Key words: numerical classifier, preschool children, error detection paradigm, semantic rule, interplay between the linguistic input and cognitive categories.

Children's theories of word meanings: The role of shape similarity in early acquisition.

Dedre Gentner，Nobuko Uchida, Mutsumi Imai

Cognitive Development 9 45-75 1994

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

外国語学習者の語彙学習における問題点 ------ 言葉の意味表象の見地から ------

IMAI MUTSUMI

教育心理学研究 41 245-253 1993

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

The present study investigated how the frequently used English word wear is understood by American students and Japanese college students studying English as a second language. The results of the two experiments revealed very different patterns between the native speakers and the L2 learners. The American students knew almost all of the senses of the word wear whether used in their concrete, prototypical senses or metaphorically extended senses and grouped the different senses into tightly cohesive clusters, which in turn comprised an orderly structured category of the word as a whole. In contrast, the Japanese students’ understanding of the word was extremely impoverished, consisting only of the senses corresponding to the Japanese word “kiru”. The pattern obtained for the native speakers was consistent with a recently proposed theory treating word meaning as a structured category with single or multiple prototypes. The large difference observed between native speakers and Japanese students in understanding the meaning of a basic, frequent word such as wear points to the problem of traditional vocabulary instruction in second language class-rooms, which exclusively relies on dictionary definitions. Key words: second language, vocabulary instruction, word meaning, polysemy, structured category.

Properties of attention during reading lessons

Richard　Anderson., Ian　Willkinson　& Huajin　Yi , Mutsumi Imai

Journal of Educational Psychology 84 160-173 1992

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

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