Josita Maouene

TL;DR: For instance, this article showed that a word is more likely to enter the lexicon the more connected the known words to which it is related, and the lure of the associates is favored in proportion to their connections with known words.

TL;DR: Two alternative growth principles are introduced and test: preferential acquisition—words enter the lexicon not because they are related to well-connected words, but because they connect well to other words in the learning environment— and the lure of the associates—new words are favored in proportion to their connections with known words.

TL;DR: The associative structure of language was supported by an analysis of the longitudinal development of early semantic networks (from 16 to 30 months) using contextual co-occurrence and was highly correlated with the number of unique associative cues for a given target word in adult free association norms.

TL;DR: This work examines the graph-theoretic properties of noun-feature networks built from the overlap of words normatively acquired by children prior to 2(1/2) years of age and shows that shared features among these early-learned nouns create higher-order groupings common to adult taxonomic designations.

TL;DR: This article investigated neural activation patterns during verb processing in children, using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and found that verbs were processed differently than adjectives, as the verbs recruited motor systems in the frontal cortex during auditory perception, but the adjectives did not.