Participants: 24-, 30- and 36-month-olds

Parents assume that “red” and “blue” are easy words for young children.  But such simple words are more challenging than they seem, because the meaning of an adjective changes in relation to the noun it modifies.  “Good” denotes different properties in “good dog” and “good weather”, but only after you’ve heard the noun can you interpret the word that precedes it.   And in “red apple” and “red nose”, the same color word denotes different hues.

In this study, children heard “Where’s the blue car?” as they looked object pairs such as (1) blue-house/ blue-car, and (2) red-car/ blue-car.  By tracking their eye movements, we could see if they could find the correct picture using just the color word.  In (1), hearing “blue” was useless since both objects were the same color.  But when looking at a blue car and a red car in (2), hearing “blue” should be enough to identify the object.  Indeed adults make up their mind when they hear the informative adjective, without waiting for the noun.  But what about young language learners?

We observed English-learning children in the looking-while-listening task at 24, 30, & 36 months.  24-month-olds could identify the object on hearing the noun, but relying on the color word alone was difficult.  By 36 months, children were real pros, turning from the red car to the blue car as soon as they heard “blue”, just like adults.  But at 30-months, children went through a period of real confusion.  When they heard the first word in “blue car” they were slow to respond, and then shifted back and forth between the two cars on hearing the noun.  After a few seconds they chose the right one, but it was a struggle to master this formidable linguistic challenge!  These results show that there is more to “knowing” a word than just being able to say it.  Developing “fluent understanding” is a long slow process that is fundamental to mature competence in language.

Our thanks to all the parents and children who participated in this study! You have made a valuable contribution to the scientific understanding of early language learning, and we very much appreciate your generosity.