Children's Use of Language to Update Mental Representations

Patricia A. Ganea
Department of Psychology
Boston University

Infants' knowledge about the world is initially limited to what they learn
from direct experience.  Once they acquire language infants move beyond
personal observation as the only source of knowledge.  Language allows us to
acquire new information about any entity to which we can refer to, and to
update knowledge of that entity in the absence of any direct contact with
it.  In this talk I will present several recent studies delineating the
emergence of this important ability.  I will first discuss a series of
findings indicating that references to absent objects and events are
comprehended early in the second year of life, as early as 13 months of age.
Further, I will show that although infants can activate a representation of
an unseen object on hearing its name as early as 13 months, their ability to
update that representation when they hear new information about it may not
emerge until late in their second year.  Finally, I will present recent
research examining toddlers' ability to update an object representation on
the basis of verbal information as compared to visual information, and
discuss the processes involved in updating.