A dual criterion account of the development of linguistic judgment in early childhood

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Journal of Memory and Language 58 (2008) 1012–1031

Journal of Memory and Language www.elsevier.com/locate/jml

A dual criterion account of the development of linguistic judgment in early childhood q William E. Merriman *, Amanda R. Lipko Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent OH 44240, USA Received 7 February 2007; revision received 3 September 2007 Available online 20 February 2008

Abstract Preschool-age children were hypothesized to use one of two criteria, cue recognition or target generation, to make several linguistic judgments. When deciding whether a word is one they know, for example, some were expected to consider whether they recognized its sound form (cue recognition), whereas others were expected to consider whether a meaning came to mind (target generation). The particular criterion that a child adopted was predicted to depend on the efficiency of the phonological or semantic memory processes that supported its use. Fifty-two preschoolers made three linguistic judgments (word familiarity, syntactic acceptability, and object nameability) and received four memory tests. Five correlations between specific memory measures and specific judgments were predicted by the dual criterion account. Five hypotheses about the distinctiveness of these correlations were also tested. The results supported the five predictions as well as three of the distinctiveness hypotheses. The potential of the account for generating new hypotheses about memory and metalinguistic awareness in early childhood was also demonstrated.  2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Language development; Memory development; Metalinguistic awareness; Phonological working memory; Word familiarity judgment; Object nameability judgment; Syntactic acceptability judgment; Word meaning retrieval

The ability to judge whether linguistic expressions sound right or make sense is not only uniquely human, but may also promote language acquisition itself. Upon encountering a new word, the child who realizes that it is unfamiliar may behave differently than other children do. The youngster may be less apt to try to retrieve q

We thank the families and staff of local preschools for their help. The constructive comments of John Dunlosky and Katherine Rawson regarding drafts of the manuscript were very valuable. Prov 3:5. * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 101 330 672 3786. E-mail address: [email protected] (W.E. Merriman).

the word’s meaning or to move on to processing the next word in input, and more inclined to ask a clarifying question or use reasoning to determine the word’s meaning (Marazita & Merriman, 2004). Likewise, the child who realizes that an initial interpretation of a sentence does not make sense may be less likely to terminate processing and more likely to seek clarification or try an alternative parsing (Marshall & Morton, 1978). The causal relationship may also work in the opposite direction, with the acquisition of new linguistic expressions, or at least improvement in processing them, fostering the development of linguistic judgment (Bialystok, 2005; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Merriman, Lipko, &

0749-596X/$ - see front matter  2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2007.10.003

W.E. Merriman, A.R. Lipko / Journal of Memory and Language 58 (2008) 1012–1031

Evey, 2006; Smith & Tager-Flusberg, 1982). In this article, we present a theory that specifies various causes that operate in this direction. Correlations between processing and judgment have been documented in early child language. For example, 3- and 4-year-olds’ comprehension of complex utterances has been found to be related to how accurately they judge the acceptability of utterances that were either well formed (e.g., Wash your hands) or not (e.g., Hands your wash) (Chaney, 1992; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1974; Smith & Tager-Flusberg, 1982). Also, those preschoolers with the strongest tendency to map novel words onto unfamiliar rather than familiar entities have proved to be better judges of whether various words are ones that they know or of whether various objects are ones that they can name (Marazita & Merriman, 2004; Merriman & Marazita, 2004). Those who most consistently selected a garlic press rather than a cup when asked which one was a pilson, for example, also tended to say, ‘‘No,’’ more frequently when first asked whether they knew what a pilson was. Our goal was to evaluate an account that links the efficiency of specific memory processes to the development of specific linguistic judgments in early childhood. Three judgments were examined—word familiarity (whether various words are known or unknown); object nameability (whether various objects have known or unknown names); and syntactic acceptability (whether various sentences have correct or incorrect word order). The two central claims of our dual criterion account are that a child first learns to use one of two criteria for each judgment, and that the efficiency of specific memory processes influences the particular criterion that he or she first learns to use.

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measures were not easily interpreted. For example, lexical judgments were not more strongly related to each other than to grammatical judgments, and were not more strongly related to vocabulary size than the grammatical judgments were. Likewise, the grammatical judgments were neither more strongly related to each other than to the lexical judgments, nor more strongly related to syntax comprehension than the lexical judgments were. Chaney (1992) replicated these findings with 3-year-olds. Smith and Tager-Flusberg (1982) speculated that children might extract insights about word meaning not only from their mental lexicon, but also from knowledge embodied in their parser. Likewise, youngsters might draw insights about grammatical relations from both of these sources. No suggestions were made regarding how such insights could be extracted, however. Karmiloff-Smith (1992) did not address children’s interpretability judgments per se, but did propose a mechanism that implies the existence of process-judgment relations that are more specific than those posited by Hakes (1980) or Smith and Tager-Flusberg (1982). According to Karmiloff-Smith, children begin to make reflective judgments about forms only after the processes underlying use and comprehension of the forms have been overlearned. For example, past tense marking needs to become fairly automatic allegedly before a child will begin to compare and contrast such markings with other forms. This proposal implies that when children are first learning to make a linguistic judgment, their accuracy should be related to how efficiently they execute the specific processes that produce the representations upon which the judgment reflects.

The dual criterion account of word familiarity judgment Previous accounts Despite the potential importance of basic linguistic judgments for language acquisition, few hypotheses have been advanced regarding how they are made or what causes them to develop. Hakes (1980) asked 4- to 8-yearolds to judge the number of phonemes contained in words, whether various utterances were syntactically acceptable, and whether pairs of utterances conveyed the same meaning. The accuracy of each judgment was found to be associated with how well the Piagetian concept of conservation was understood. Hakes proposed that the development of linguistic decentration, or the ability to mentally stand back from one’s use or comprehension of an expression, caused across-the-board improvement in linguistic judgment from early to middle childhood. Smith and Tager-Flusberg (1982) objected to this account, and found 3- and 4-year-olds’ judgments to be more accurate than Hakes (1980) and others had proposed. They also noted that relations among the judgments and between the judgments and other cognitive

In contrast to previous accounts, Merriman et al. (2006) argued that individual differences in the ways that early linguistic judgments are made mask specific relations between these judgments and memory processes. Proposals were advanced regarding the ways that children judge whether various words are ones that they know (word familiarity). Some youngsters were hypothesized to make this decision based on whether they recognized a word’s sound form (cue recognition), whereas others were hypothesized to primarily consider whether they retrieved the word’s meaning (target retrieval). For example, some would judge hoost to be unknown because they did not recognize its sound-form, whereas others would judge it to be unknown because they retrieved no meaning for it. Merriman et al. (2006) proposed that those children who possessed above-average phonological working memory (WM), but who tended to activate and retrieve less semantic information when encoding a word would use the word form recognition criterion, whereas those

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with the opposite memory profile would base judgments on word meaning retrieval. The results of two experiments were consistent with this account. Among those 3- and 4-year-olds who showed low levels of semantic interference in recall, accuracy of word familiarity judgment was directly related to a measure of phonological WM. Among those showing high levels of semantic interference, judgment accuracy was unrelated to phonological WM. Conversely, among those showing poor phonological WM, judgment accuracy was directly related to the magnitude of semantic interference. Among those showing above-average phonological WM, judgment accuracy was unrelated to semantic interference. These findings support the claim that if only one of the two relevant memory processes is sufficiently developed, then children learn to judge word familiarity fairly accurately, and make these judgments based on the more advanced memory process. The dual criterion account not only posits individual differences in the criteria used for linguistic judgment, but also identifies individual differences in memory processes and describes ways of measuring them. Some children should excel at establishing and maintaining word sound-forms in working memory, which can be measured by the ability to repeat back high-wordlike pseudowords (Baddeley, 2003; Gathercole, 1995). Others should experience the activation and retrieval of greater amounts of semantic information than their peers in response to hearing a familiar word, which can be measured by how much proactive interference builds up over recall trials for object names from the same category (e.g., chair, TV, then table, bed, then lamp, rug) (Huttenlocher & Lui, 1979). Merriman et al. (2006) found no relation between these respective measures of phonological WM and semantic retrieval, implying that individual differences in these memory processes in early childhood are independent of each other.

The expanded dual criterion account Here we have expanded the dual criterion account so that it not only addresses judgments of word familiarity, but also judgments of object nameability and syntactic acceptability. Five predicted memory-judgment links, or correlations, were derived from the expanded account and evaluated in the current study. Five other hypotheses that were consistent with the account, but depended on other assumptions as well, were also tested. The latter concerned the distinctiveness of the link predictions. The link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses were derived from four sources: pairs of criteria proposed for each judgment (see Table 1); claims about the memory processes that promote acquisition of each criterion (see Process in Table 2); claims about how each memory process can be measured (see Measure in Table 2); and the claim that a process must become rather well developed before a child can begin to reflect on its products. The account takes its lead from analyses of two processes that adults often execute when answering knowledge questions, namely, cue recognition and target retrieval (Koriat & Levy-Sadot, 2001; Reder, 1987). When asked, ‘‘What is the capital of Ohio?,’’ for example, many develop a feeling that they know the answer even before they retrieve it. This feeling of knowing is hypothesized to be based primarily on recognition of the cues in the question (e.g., recognizing the words Ohio, the capital of). If pressed to indicate whether or not they know the answer to the question before they manage to retrieve it, adults usually decide based on the strength of their feeling of knowing. If they are allowed to take as much time as they want to retrieve the answer, the strength of this feeling influences how long they search for the answer before giving up. And if they do give up, the feeling may be strong enough for them to decide that they actually know the answer, but just cannot recall it at the moment.

Table 1 The pairs of criteria for each linguistic judgment Judgment

Criterion Cue recognition

Target generation

Word familiarity Do you know what a [e.g., zav] is?

Cue: Word form How familiar does the word form seem?

Target: Word meaning Does a meaning for the word come to mind?

Object nameability Do you know the name for this [object]?

Cue: Object How familiar does the object seem?

Target: Object name Does a name for the object come to mind?

Syntactic acceptability Did he say it the right or wrong way?

Cue: Sentence form How familiar does the sentence form seem?

Target: Sentence meaning Does an interpretation for the sentence come to mind?

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Table 2 Processes and measures associated with each judgment criterion Judgment

Criterion Cue recognition

Target generation

Word familiarity Process Measure

Cue: Word form Phonological WM Repetition of high-wordlike pseudowords

Target: Word meaning Semantic retrieval Recall of categoricallyrelated nouns

Object nameability Process Measure

Cue: Object Object recognition Name-distinct object recognitiona

Target: Object name Object name retrieval Name-distinct object recognitiona

Syntactic acceptability Process Measure

Cue: Sentence form Phonological WM Repetition of high-wordlike pseudowords

Target: Sentence meaning Semantic integration Recall of categoricallyunrelated nouns

Notes. aPerformance on this measure is affected by both object recognition and object name retrieval.

Our proposal is that preschool-age children first learn to judge word familiarity, object nameability, and syntactic acceptability by using either a cue recognition or target generation criterion. They learn to base these judgments on whether they recognize the stimulus under consideration or whether they generate key verifying information. When judging whether a word is one they know, for example, they decide based on whether they recognize the word form (cue recognition) or whether they believe they have retrieved or constructed the word’s meaning (target generation) (see Table 1). Those who follow the first procedure accept the word only if they judge its sound form to be a familiar one and those who follow the second procedure accept the word only if what they judge to be the word’s meaning comes to mind. Note that constructing a meaning rather than retrieving one is an option for multi-morphemic words. Rather than retrieving the meaning of a word such as doghouse directly, for example, a child may construct it from the (retrieved) meanings of its parts. We use the word ‘‘generation’’ to include both the option of retrieving or constructing a mental representation. When judging object nameability, the primary cue is an object and the target to be generated is its name. According to our account, some children judge whether they know an object’s name based on whether they recognize the object (cue recognition) and others decide based on whether they retrieve or construct its name (target generation) (see Table 1). Note that cue recognition need not involve identifying the individual object as one that has been encountered before; it may be sufficient to recognize it as an instance of a category that has been seen before (i.e., as a familiar kind of object, e.g., a cup).

When judging syntactic acceptability, the primary cue is the form of the uttered sentence, and the target (at least for some children) is its interpretation. According to our account, some judge whether an utterance is the ‘‘right or wrong way around’’ based on whether the stream of word forms that they hear seems like a familiar type of sentence (cue recognition) and others decide based on whether they can interpret the stream (target generation). Again, cue recognition need not involve identifying the particular utterance as one that has been heard before; it may be sufficient to recognize it as an instance of a familiar type. Cue recognition is assumed to be a primarily non-semantic process that depends on how well the word sequence matches representations of sequences that have been heard before. Even infants can detect and retain order relations in a stream of nonsense words (Gomez & Gerken, 1999; Marcus, Vijayan, Bandi Rao, & Vishton, 1999; Saffran & Wilson, 2003). The existence of this early capacity makes it plausible to hypothesize that at a later age some children come to judge syntactic acceptability on the grounds of form relations rather than meaning relations. They may reject a reverse-ordered imperative such as, ‘‘Hands your wash,’’ for example, because they know that hands is not an instance of a type of word form that when positioned first can be followed by the type of word form instantiated by your. They may not be aware that they are using this knowledge; the claim is only that their rejection of an utterance may be based upon it. We are not proposing that every child learns to use only one criterion for a judgment or that the memory processes that support acquisition of each criterion for a particular judgment are completely independent. Rather, we propose that every child first learns to use only one crite-

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rion, and that the relevant memory processes are sufficiently independent, or differentially developed, to influence criterion choice. The first proposal is consistent with the general finding that children move from an initial focus on only one aspect of a problem to an approach that takes several aspects into account (Andrews & Halford, 2002; Case, 1998; Siegler, 1996). Regarding the empirical basis for the assumption of sufficient memory independence, we know of no early child research other than that reported by Merriman et al. (2006) that has examined intercorrelations among the relevant memory processes. The current study filled this gap. The link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses The link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses are organized into five pairs in Table 3. The link prediction in each pair ties a specific judgment to a specific memory process, usually just in those children who show low levels of development in another memory process (one that would support acquiring the alternative criterion for the judgment). The distinctiveness hypothesis in each pair asserts that the predicted relation will be stronger than relations between the specific memory process and the other two linguistic judgments. Word familiarity judgment and semantic retrieval (Pair 1) A different measure of semantic retrieval than the one administered by Merriman et al. (2006) was used. If it

were also found to relate to word familiarity judgment in the predicted manner, then empirical support for the dual criterion account would be bolstered. The current measure was recall of triplets of categoricallyrelated nouns (e.g., pig, cow, horse, then sand, mud, dirt). Each triplet represented a different category, which meant that semantic retrieval would serve to counteract, or cause release from, any proactive interference that might develop over trials. Consistent with this analysis, (Huttenlocher & Lui (1979), Study 2) found that preschool-age children’s free recall of categorically-related triplets exceeded that for unrelated triplets. They attributed this effect to the spread of semantic activation among related nouns that occurred during encoding and retrieval. Regarding the distinctiveness hypothesis, Merriman et al. (2006) found that the correlation between word familiarity judgment and semantic retrieval among the ‘‘low phonological’’ participants remained significant even after shared relations with vocabulary size were partialled out. Moreover, the correlation became nonsignificant when the accuracy of word familiarity judgment was replaced in the computation by the accuracy of object nameability judgment, despite a moderately strong correlation between these judgment scores. The dual criterion explanation for these results is that children’s rate of learning to judge word familiarity on the basis of word meaning retrieval depends on how much semantic information they typically retrieve in response to familiar words. The greater the amount retrieved, the easier it is for the child to detect the

Table 3 The link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses Word familiarity judgment 1. a. Link: Magnitude of semantic retrieval, as measured by the recall of categorically-related nouns, will be related to this judgment among children showing low levels of phonological WM, but not among those showing high levels. b. Distinctiveness: The predicted relation in the ‘‘low phonological WM’’ group will be stronger than relations between semantic retrieval and other linguistic judgments in this group. 2. a. Link: Efficiency of phonological WM, as measured by repetition of high-wordlike pseudowords, will be related to this judgment among those showing low levels of semantic retrieval, but not among those showing high levels. b. Distinctiveness: The predicted relation in the ‘‘low semantic retrieval’’ group will be stronger than relations between phonological WM and other linguistic judgments in this group. Syntactic acceptability judgment 3. a. Link: Semantic integration tendencies, as measured by recall of unrelated nouns, will be related to this judgment among those showing low levels of phonological WM, but not among those showing high levels. b. Distinctiveness: The predicted relation in the ‘‘low phonological WM’’ group will be stronger than relations between semantic integration and other linguistic judgments in this group. 4. a. Link: Phonological WM will be related to syntactic acceptability judgment among children showing weaker semantic integration tendencies, but not among those showing stronger tendencies. b. Distinctiveness: The predicted relation in the ‘‘weak semantic integration’’ group will be stronger than relations between phonological WM and other linguistic judgments in this group. Object nameability judgment 5. a. Link: Name-distinct object recognition will be related to object nameability judgment among all children. b. Distinctiveness: The predicted relation will be stronger than relations between name-distinct object recognition and other linguistic judgments in all children.

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relation between whether a word causes semantic information about itself to be retrieved and whether the word is to be identified as known, that is, the easier it is to learn to use the target generation criterion. The accuracy of word familiarity judgment should only be associated with semantic retrieval among children for whom the other basis for making accurate judgments, word form recognition, is not well developed. Among those who show advanced working memory for word forms (as measured by pseudoword repetition), even those who retrieve little semantic information may judge word familiarity accurately because they have acquired the cue recognition criterion for making this judgment. Both the current measure of semantic retrieval and the one used by Merriman et al. (2006) involved recall after a brief period of interfering verbal activity (identifying finger counts). This activity was intended to reduce the dependence of children’s recall on phonological WM. Repetition of high-wordlike pseudowords (Gathercole, 1995), which served as our measure of the latter capacity (see next section), has been found to be correlated with children’s word or digit span, that is, with how well they recall a short list of words or numbers immediately after hearing them. Word familiarity judgment and phonological WM (Pair 2) Children’s efficiency in storing and maintaining novel words forms in phonological WM was assessed by having them try to repeat back high-wordlike pseudowords such as rubid and stoppogratic. Merriman et al. (2006) found preschool-age children were better able to repeat these than to repeat low-wordlike pseudowords such as glistow and perplisteronk. Gathercole and colleagues (Gathercole, 1995; Gathercole, Willis, Emslie, & Baddeley, 1991), who developed this repetition task, obtained similar findings with British child samples. They proposed that bottom-up encoding and storage processes in phonological STM as well as top-down retrieval from knowledge of word forms (phonological LTM) determine whether an accurate representation of a highwordlike pseudoword is maintained in phonological WM well enough for the child to repeat it back correctly. Like Pair 1, Pair 2 is consistent with the results reported by Merriman et al. (2006). Regarding the distinctiveness hypothesis, the correlation between word familiarity judgment and phonological WM among those who showed low levels of semantic retrieval remained significant even after shared relations with vocabulary size were partialled out, and became nonsignificant when the accuracy of word familiarity judgment was replaced in the computation of the correlation by the accuracy of object nameability judgment.

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The rationale for the claims of Pair 2 is that if word meaning retrieval processes are sufficiently well developed, the quality of phonological WM should not affect how rapidly children learn to judge word familiarity. Advanced semantic retrieval processes support learning to base this judgment on target generation rather than cue recognition. Therefore, pseudoword repetition performance should be unrelated to judgment accuracy among those who show higher levels of semantic retrieval. If such retrieval processes are poorly developed, however, children’s rate of learning to judge word familiarity on the basis of word form recognition should depend on the quality of their WM for word forms. Therefore, pseudoword repetition should be related to word familiarity judgment among those who show lower levels of semantic retrieval. Syntactic acceptability judgment and semantic integration (Pair 3) As in previous studies (Chaney, 1992; Smith & TagerFlusberg, 1982), the ability to judge syntactic acceptability was assessed by having participants decide whether a puppet had said something ‘‘the right way or the wrong way around.’’ They heard the puppet utter some comprehensible three word commands (Wash your hands) and some reverse-ordered ones (Hands your wash). The hypothesized target generation criterion was to base this judgment on whether a meaning could be retrieved or constructed for the utterance (see Table 1). Children who show aboveaverage semantic integration tendencies were hypothesized to be among the first to learn to use this criterion. Thematic roles are semantic relations that are expressed by noun, verb, and prepositional phrases in sentences (Langacker, 1987; Tomasello, 2003). For example, in ‘‘The boy hit the ball,’’ the role of agent is expressed by The boy, the role of action is expressed by hit, and the role of patient by the ball. Comprehending a sentence involves determining how thematic roles are instantiated, or fleshed out, by the meanings of the content words in the sentence. Once ‘‘the boy,’’ ‘‘hit,’’ and ‘‘the ball’’ are identified as the phrases that express an agent-action-patient relation, for example, the child must decide how the specific meanings of boy, hit, and ball are to be integrated so that this relation can be instantiated. The child must generate a conception of how a boy and hitting can be combined so as to satisfy an agent-action relation, and of how hitting and a ball can be combined so as to satisfy an action–patient relation. If semantic integration fails, the child is left with only a vague, disjoint sense of the message conveyed by the sentence. Children’s immediate recall of triplets of unrelated nouns (e.g., tree, fan, juice) was hypothesized to be facilitated to the extent that they attempted to integrate the nouns’ meanings at encoding. Their tendency to con-

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ceive of the denoted objects as being in some kind of relation was assumed to promote their subsequent recall of the objects’ names. Thus, recall of such lists after a brief interfering activity was considered an index of the tendency to construct and later retrieve semantic integrations of the words in a sequence. Note that this task also included a brief interfering verbal activity between presentation and recall so that the influence of phonological WM would be reduced. The hypothesis that individual differences in young children’s recall of unrelated nouns reflect individual differences in semantic integration tendencies is novel. Indirect support for these proposals can be found, however. Semantic congruency has been found to affect an eventrelated potential component, the anterior N400, in both 3- and 4-year-olds (Sylva-Pereyra, Rivera-Gaxiola, & Kuhl, 2005). The amplitude of this component tends to be greater when a word does not fit semantic context (e.g., ‘‘movie’’ in ‘‘My uncle will blow the movie’’) than when it does (e.g., ‘‘movie’’ in ‘‘My uncle will watch the movie.’’) The N400 response in both children and adults has been hypothesized to reflect processes that integrate the meaning of a stimulus with the meaning of its context (Friedrich & Friederici, 2005; Holcomb, 1993). Additionally, 1-year-olds have shown a greater N400-like component in response to unrelated word-picture pairs compared to related ones (Friedrich & Friederici, 2004, 2005), and both 1- and 2-year-olds have shown a greater N400-like component in response to an unrelated wordword pair compared to a related one (Torkildsen, Syversen, Simonsen, Moen, & Lindgren, 2007). These findings make it reasonable to hypothesize that the accuracy of semantic-based judgments of sentence acceptability covaries with how well children recall lists of unrelated nouns. Those who show the strongest semantic integration tendencies, as measured by unrelated recall, should be the first to learn to judge syntactic acceptability based on whether the message conveyed by an utterance can be constructed or retrieved. Because those who possess superior phonological WM should tend to learn the other criterion for making such judgments (i.e., sentence form recognition), unrelated noun recall should be directly related to the accuracy of syntactic acceptability judgment only among those showing below-average phonological WM. No relation should be evident among the other children. According to the distinctiveness hypothesis, the predicted link for the ‘‘low phonological WM’’ children should be stronger than associations between semantic integration tendencies and other linguistic judgments in this group of children. Syntactic acceptability judgment and phonological WM (Pair 4) The cue recognition procedure for this judgment involves deciding whether the form of some multi-word

utterance sounds like a kind that one has heard before (see Table 1). According to the dual criterion account, children should tend to use this form-based procedure if they do not generate sentence interpretations very well, but excel at encoding and retaining uninterpreted word forms and the sequential relations among them. Although the pseudoword repetition test did not involve the presentation of a multi-word utterance, it did require children to encode and retain sequential relations among phonemes and among larger phonological units within novel words. (The pseudowords ranged in length from two to four syllables.) We judged that the ability to encode and retain such information would be sufficiently related to the ability to encode and retain the sequential relations in a stream of unfamiliar words that it would not be necessary to develop a separate test of the latter ability. Both should reflect how well phonological WM functions. In support of this assumption, four-year-olds’ pseudoword repetition has been found to be highly correlated with their short term recognition memory for the order in which the pseudowords in a short list have been presented (Gathercole, Service, Hitch, Adams, & Martin, 1999). Among those exhibiting below-average semantic integration tendencies, the ability to repeat back high-wordlike pseudowords was predicted to relate directly to the accuracy of syntactic acceptability judgment. Because the memory processes that would support acquisition of the target generation criterion are poorly developed in these children, they could only learn the cue recognition procedure, and would only learn it if their phonological WM were sufficiently developed. According to the distinctiveness hypothesis, this predicted relation for ‘‘weak semantic integrators’’ should be stronger than that found between phonological WM and other linguistic judgments in this group. Regarding those showing strong semantic integration tendencies, pseudoword repetition was predicted to be unrelated to the accuracy of syntactic acceptability judgment (part of the Pair 4 link prediction). This claim is just another instance of the general proposal that if the processes that support acquisition of one criterion are sufficiently developed, then the quality of the processes that support acquisition of the other criterion will not affect how quickly a child learns to make the judgment. Object nameability judgment and name-distinct object recognition (Pair 5) According to the dual criterion account, object nameability judgment is based on either object recognition or object name generation (see Table 1). Moreover, object name retrieval ability should predict the accuracy of such judgments only among those with under-developed object recognition (i.e., in the group that is unlikely to

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learn the object recognition criterion). Likewise, object recognition ability should predict judgment accuracy only among those with below-average object name retrieval skill (i.e., in the group that is unlikely to learn the name generation criterion). Ideally, separate tests of object recognition and object name retrieval should be used. These were difficult to develop, however. Standard tests of object recognition involve presenting familiar objects, then later asking participants to pick these out from sets that also include other familiar objects (Kail, 1990). Presumably, youngsters with superior object recognition processes would do well on such a test, but so too might ones with superior name retrieval skill. Even if unfamiliar objects were used instead of familiar ones in the recognition paradigm, superior name retrievers might be better able to generate descriptions during encoding (e.g., like a clock for a barometer), and might achieve high recognition scores by deciding whether they have generated an object description at test that they recognize as having generated at encoding. Because of this problem, we devised a less rigorous test of the dual criterion account for object nameability judgments. Children were given a memory test on which they would perform better than their peers if either their object recognition or object name retrieval processes were well developed than if neither of these processes was well developed. According to the Pair 5 link prediction, test performance should be directly related to the accuracy of children’s object nameability judgments. According to the associated distinctiveness hypothesis, this relation should be stronger than that between test performance and the accuracy of the other linguistic judgments. Because the test was not ‘‘memory-processpure,’’ however, results would not reveal how strongly object nameability judgments were related to object recognition processes alone or to name retrieval processes alone. This name-distinct object recognition test involved presenting pictures of familiar objects, each of which had a distinct basic level name. Later, the children had to pick out these pictures from arrays that also contained pictures of other distinctively-named familiar objects. They were expected to excel to the extent that they recognized the targets and/or recognized the names that that they had previously generated for them. Assumptions underlying the distinctiveness hypotheses Although both the link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses presume the validity of the dual criterion account, the distinctiveness hypotheses also presume the independence of memory processes. Thus, disconfirmation of any distinctiveness hypothesis could be the result of covariation among memory processes rather than reflect some flaw in the dual criterion

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account itself. For example, were semantic retrieval found to be substantially related to both word familiarity and object nameability judgment, the reason might be that semantic retrieval covaries with the quality of one of the memory processes hypothesized by the dual criterion account to promote the development of object nameability judgment. This interpretation can be addressed by examining correlations between memory processes. Empirical support for any of the distinctiveness hypotheses would pose a challenge for alternatives to the dual criterion account. For example, if as hypothesized, semantic retrieval were found to be correlated with word familiarity judgment, but not other linguistic judgments, this result would be inconsistent with alternative explanations such as that smarter, more knowledgeable, or more reflective children just tend to retrieve greater amounts of semantic information about familiar words.

Methods Participants Fifty-two children (M age = 3–8; median = 3–8; range = 3–0 to 4–10; 31 boys and 21 girls) were recruited from preschools or daycare centers in middle class neighborhoods in northeastern Ohio. No child was dropped from the study. However, nineteen children did fail to recall a single word in the recall tasks. Materials and procedure All participants were asked to perform seven tasks, which were presented in one of two counterbalanced orders (Order A: word familiarity judgment, object nameability judgment, syntactic acceptability judgment, name-distinct object recognition, pseudoword repetition, related recall, and unrelated recall; Order B: name-distinct object recognition, syntactic acceptability judgment, object nameability judgment, word familiarity judgment, pseudoword repetition, related recall, and unrelated recall). Unrelated recall always followed related recall because it was the more difficult of the two tasks. In a pilot study, when this task was administered first, many children failed to recall any unrelated words and then refused to take the subsequent related recall task. The tasks were presented individually in a quiet room in the child’s school or daycare center. A thirteen-inch Panasonic television and a Panasonic DVD player were placed on a table. The experimenter and child sat next to each other at the table approximately two feet from the television screen. The same experimenter (the second author) tested every child in the study.

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Word familiarity judgment

Syntactic acceptability judgment

The stimuli and procedures developed by Merriman et al. (2006), (Study 2) for eliciting these judgments were used. A child was told, ‘‘You are going to hear some words. Some are words that you will know, but others are just made-up or pretend words. I want you to tell me which words you know. If I say a word that you know, say ‘yes’. If you don’t know the word, say ‘no’. You can’t say anything else—just ‘yes’ or ‘no’.’’ Two practice trials were presented (‘‘Do you know what a {book, zimbidy} is?’’) The child was told whether his or her answer was correct. Ten test questions were presented in a random order, five familiar (dog, house, TV, truck, table) and five unfamiliar (mosby, biffle, pug, nure, gocken). The experimenter responded to the child’s answers with an occasional ‘‘OK’’ or ‘‘Good.’’ After the test, every question about an unfamiliar word to which the child had answered, ‘‘Yes,’’ was repeated. If the child responded affirmatively again, he/she was asked, ‘‘What is it?’’ His or her explanation was analyzed to determine whether the word had been misidentified as a phonologically-similar familiar word (eg. nurse instead of nure). No such misidentifications were evident.

This task was adapted from one developed by de Villiers and de Villiers (1972). Children watched a DVD in which the Sesame Street puppet Elmo presented threeword commands, which were either in correct or reversed word order. Elmo told the child, ‘‘In this game, I am going to say some things that are silly. I am going to say them the wrong way around. But sometimes I am going to say things the right way and you have to tell.’’ After Elmo uttered each sentence, the experimenter asked if Elmo had said the sentence ‘‘the right way or the wrong way.’’ Two practice trials were administered, one involving a correctly-ordered command (Read the book) and the other, a reverse-ordered command (Nose your touch). After each, the experimenter asked whether Elmo had said it the right or wrong way. After the child responded, he or she heard Elmo say whether he had said it the right or wrong way. For the reverse-ordered sentence, Elmo also restated it in the correct order to illustrate the difference between a ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘wrong’’ sentence. The test sentences were presented in a random order. Five were correct (Brush your teeth/Sweep the floor/ Drink the milk/Open the door/ Throw the ball) and five were reverse-ordered (Dog the pat/Hands your wash/Window the close/ Hands your clap/Cookie the eat). The experimenter responded to the child’s answers with an occasional ‘‘OK’’ or ‘‘Good.’’

Object nameability judgment The procedure developed by Marazita and Merriman (2004) for eliciting these judgments was used, but the stimuli were objects rather than drawings of objects. Children were told that they were going to see some objects that they knew and some that they did not know, and that for each one they would be asked whether they knew its name. They were instructed to say ‘‘yes’’ if they knew the name and ‘‘no’’ if they did not. They were warned not to say anything other than ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no.’’ Two practice trials with feedback were presented (‘‘Do you know the name for this?’’ regarding one familiar and one unfamiliar object). Five familiar and five unfamiliar test objects were presented one at a time in a random order. The familiar objects were a cup, flower, spoon, ball, and sock. The unfamiliar objects were an egg slicer, cleat wrench, device for screwing off bottle caps, CD opener, and striped animal with cylindrical body, four legs, and suction cup feet. For each object, the experimenter asked, ‘‘Do you know the name for this?’’ She responded to the child’s answers with an occasional ‘‘OK’’ or ‘‘Good.’’ After each unfamiliar object trial, if the participant had responded affirmatively, he or she was asked to provide the name of the object. These responses were analyzed to determine whether the child overextended a familiar name to the unfamiliar object. If so, the trial was excluded from the calculation of the child’s proportion of correct yes–no judgments. (M number excluded per child = 0.81, range = 0–3).

Pseudoword repetition The stimuli and procedures for this task were the same as in Merriman et al. (2006), (Study 2), except that video presentation by a puppet rather than audio presentation by an adult was used. This change was intended to promote attention to the stimuli. The child watched a DVD in which a leopard puppet named Morris uttered the words. The voice of Morris was a recording of the experimenter’s voice. To avoid a potential McGurk effect (McGurk & MacDonald, 1978), the puppet hid his face every time he said a word. The child was told that Morris was a friendly, but shy puppet who wanted to play a game. ‘‘Morris is going to say a word and what you have to do is say it back. You have to be an echo. I want you to try to say every word, even if the words don’t make any sense. Just try to say what you hear Morris say.’’ Morris presented a practice word (chair) and if the child repeated it, Morris congratulated the child. If the child said nothing or repeated the word incorrectly, the experimenter presented an additional practice trial. Eight familiar words and eleven high-wordlike pseudowords (roobid, grundle, diller, pennad, brastering, dopelate, kannifer, parrazon, commeecitate, stoppogratic, confrantual) were then presented by Morris at a rate of

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one every three seconds. Most of the familiar words were presented first. The pseudowords were presented in the order listed above, with an occasional familiar word intervening. Repetition of a pseudoword was scored as incorrect by the experimenter if any of its phonemes was omitted, moved to a new position, or replaced by another phoneme, or if a new phoneme was added. Word repetitions were not scored; these trials served as easy items that maintained the child’s engagement in the task. Name-distinct object recognition The child was told that he or she would be watching pictures on the television, and should pay very close attention because the pictures were going to go by very fast. Thirty color pictures were presented at a rate of one per second. Each picture was a photograph of a different type of familiar object taken from a children’s wordbook (Wilkes, 1999). After presentation, the child was asked to pay attention as the experimenter held up 15 posters one at a time. Each poster was 11 inches by 14 inches and displayed four pictures of objects from the wordbook. One to three of them had been previously presented on the television (targets), while the others had not (distracters). Each distracter had a distinct name, which like the names of the targets, was familiar to the child (see Appendix A). The child was told to point to the pictures that he or she remembered having seen on the television screen. Related and unrelated recall This task was adapted from Huttenlocher and Lui (1979). The child attempted to recall lists of noun triplets. Four lists contained categorically-related triplets (pig–cow–horse, sand–mud–dirt, arm–leg–neck; car–bus– train) and four contained unrelated ones (door–hat– game, box–song–rope, wood–corn–light, tree–fan–juice). The child was told that he or she was going to watch a DVD in which Morris would be playing a ‘‘hiding game with words’’. The experimenter explained that Morris would say three words at a time. The child was told to repeat the words and ‘‘catch them in your hands.’’ The experimenter demonstrated with a practice list (red– blue–green), saying the words, pretending to grasp them out of the air, then telling the child to do the same. Once the child had pretended to grasp the words in his/her hands, the experimenter asked, ‘‘What words do you have in your hands?’’ After recall, the child was told what the words were (if necessary), then told to ‘‘Throw the words away and get ready for new words’’. The DVD was turned on and Morris presented another practice triplet (circle–square–triangle). With encouragement and assistance (if necessary), the child repeated the words and pretended to catch them, then

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was asked to recall them. Morris told the child to throw the words away and prepare for some more words. For the last practice trial (mommy–daddy–sister) and the eight test trials, a distraction activity was added. An array of four drawn hands was presented on the television screen three seconds after Morris finished presenting a triplet. The three second period was enough time for every child to repeat and ‘‘catch’’ a triplet. Each hand in the distracter array held up a different number of fingers. The experimenter randomly pointed to different hands, and each time asked the child, ‘‘How many fingers are up?’’ The arrangement of the hands in the array varied from trial to trial. On each trial, this distraction activity lasted seven seconds, after which the screen went blank and the child was asked by the experimenter to recall the words in his or her hands. After ten seconds, a chime sounded on the DVD. Morris reappeared on the screen and told the child to throw away the words and prepare to hear three new words. Five seconds later, the next trial began. The child received praise and encouragement after each trial.

Results and discussion Children’s judgments and memory test performances were analyzed for the effects of age, task, and stimulus. Gender was not a significant factor nor involved in significant interactions in any analysis. General relations among the measures were examined, then the link predictions and distinctiveness hypotheses were evaluated. Finally, the hypothesis-generating potential of the dual criterion account was addressed. Effects of age, task, and stimulus For each task, the child was scored for the proportion of items that was responded to correctly. For example, a child who recalled two of the twelve unrelated nouns that were presented received a score of.167 for unrelated recall. Mean scores for the younger (M = 3– 4, range = 3–0 to 3–7, N = 26) and older children (M = 4–2, range = 3–8 to 4–10, N = 26) on every task are summarized in Table 4. Linguistic judgments A 2 (age) · 3 (judgment) mixed analysis of variance of the scores for the judgments yielded significant effects of age, F(1, 50) = 4.11, p < .05, g2 = .08, and judgment, F(1, 50)=27.31, p < .001, g2 = .35. As in previous research (Chaney, 1992; Marazita & Merriman, 2004; Merriman et al., 2006; Smith & Tager-Flusberg, 1982), older children tended to make the judgments more accurately than younger children did. Object nameability was judged more accurately than word familiarity (Ms = .81 and .72, respectively), which in turn was judged more

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Table 4 Mean proportion correct on every task by younger and older children Task

Younger

Older

Judgment Word familiarity Object nameability Syntactic acceptability

.69 (.21) .77 (.21) .54 (.16)

.75 (.22) .86 (.18) .65 (.18)

Memory Pseudoword repetition Object recognition Related recall Unrelated recall

.50 .63 .33 .13

.62 .72 .34 .19

(.22) (.13) (.16) (.16)

(.17) (.15) (.18) (.15)

Notes. Standard deviations are listed in the parentheses. N = 52 for every task, except the two recall tasks, where N = 33.

accurately than syntactic acceptability (M = .60). Only the older children made the latter judgments with above-chance accuracy, t(25) = 4.25, p < .01. In Chaney’s (1992) study, 3-year-olds’ syntactic judgments showed above-chance accuracy, but were not as accurate as word familiarity judgments. Both the 3- and 4-yearolds tested by Smith and Tager-Flusberg (1982) judged syntactic acceptability as accurately as word familiarity. Object nameability judgment was not assessed in these investigations. A procedural difference may explain the poorer syntactic judgment observed in the current study. In the previous studies participants were asked to try to correct every utterance that they judged to have been said the ‘‘wrong way round.’’ This requirement may have helped some children to learn to better distinguish the reverseordered commands from the well-ordered ones during the test. Children were not asked to attempt corrections in the current study because, as Hakes (1980) suggested, such attempts themselves might cause some youngsters to alter their criteria for deciding whether to accept or reject an utterance. Memory tests Scores on each memory test were submitted to separate 2(age) one-way analyses of variance. As in previous studies (Gathercole, 1995; Merriman et al., 2006), older children were better able than younger ones to repeat back high-wordlike pseudowords, F(1, 50) = 4.86, p < .05, g2 = .09. A similar age difference was evident in name-distinct object recognition, F(1, 50) = 4.89, p < .05, g2 = .09. Such an age difference has been observed in previous studies of object recognition (Merriman, Azmitia, & Perlmutter, 1988; Perlmutter & Myers, 1974, 1976). Eleven children in the younger group and eight in the older group did not recall a single related or unrelated word. Because these failures could have reflected factors other than poor recall ability, such as lack of cooperation or difficulty following instructions, these data were

excluded. In the remaining sample, no age difference was evident in short-term recall of either related or unrelated noun triplets, F < 1. Related recall was greater than unrelated recall, F(1, 31) = 25.55, p < .001, g2 = .45, consistent with previous reports (Huttenlocher & Lui, 1979; Laurence, 1967; Study 2). The null effect of age is consistent with the results of Merriman et al. (2006) for related noun pairs. Although not reported by these investigators, the correlation between age and total recall was.00 in their first study (df = .51) and .12 in their second (df = 46). Age was also not related to recall on first trials in either study (i.e., the trials not subject to semantic PI), correlation coefficients were .09 and .07, respectively. Huttenlocher and Lui (1979) included a control condition in which noun pairs changed category on every recall trial. Although no analysis of age differences was reported, 3- and 5-yearolds’ mean recall percentages, which can be computed from graphs in their article, were fairly similar (.48 and .55, respectively). In summary, the effects of age, task, and stimulus type were generally consistent with those previously reported. The only striking exception was that syntactic acceptability judgments were less accurate than in past studies. The likely reason for the exception was that participants were not instructed to try to correct every sentence that they judged to be unacceptable. General relations Correlations among all measures, as well as Cronbach alphas (i.e., indexes of internal consistency) for each measure, are summarized in Table 5. (With one exception, all significant correlations were also significant when age was partialled out. The exception was that between name-distinct object recognition and pseudoword repetition, r(49) = .19, p > .10.) The linguistic judgments were moderately intercorrelated, replicating previous results (Chaney, 1992; Marazita & Merriman, 2004; Merriman et al., 2006; Smith & Tager-Flusberg, 1982). Low reliability may have attenuated the correlations involving syntactic acceptability judgment, as its Cronbach alpha was lower than that for the other two judgments. The memory measures tended to be independent of one another, although low reliability of some of the measures may have attenuated correlations. The only significant correlations involved object recognition, which was weakly related to pseudoword repetition and fairly strongly related to recall of related nouns. As Merriman et al. (2006) had found, a hypothesized measure of phonological WM efficiency, pseudoword repetition, was unrelated to a hypothesized measure of semantic retrieval, which in the current case was related recall. No other studies have examined relations among these memory measures in preschool-age children.

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Table 5 Intercorrelations among tasks TASK Judgment 1. Word familiarity (.86) 2. Object nameability (.89) 3. Syntactic acceptability (.48)

2

3

4

5

6

7

.51*

.33* .37*

.48* .50* .38*

.26 .14 .09

.41* .58* .23

.12 .11 .32

.06

.29* .46*

.10 .23 .26

Memory 4. Pseudoword repetition (.52) 5. Related recall (.49) 6. Object recognition (.88) 7. Unrelated recall (.56) Notes. *Two-tailed p < .05. df = 50 for all correlations, except ones involving recall, where df = 31. Cronbach alphas for each measure are listed in parentheses.

Regarding judgment-memory relations, children’s success in repeating back pseudowords was positively correlated with each linguistic judgment. This result is consistent with the claim of the dual criterion account that an efficient phonological WM promotes acquisition of the cue recognition criteria for word familiarity and syntactic acceptability judgment by some children. However, as specified in link predictions 2 and 4 (Table 3), these hypothesized effects should only be evident among those who lag behind in the memory processes that support learning the target generation criteria for these judgments (see next Section). The correlation between pseudoword repetition and object nameability judgment was unexpected. These measures were not found to be correlated by Merriman et al. (2006), (Study 1). This unexpected result will be addressed in the discussion of the results of tests of the distinctiveness hypotheses. No judgment was associated with recall of either related or unrelated nouns. If the dual criterion account is valid, these null correlations mask significant judgment-recall relations in those whose phonological WM is rather poor (link predictions 1 and 3). The link predictions The primary evaluation of the dual criteria account concerned the five predicted links between judgment and memory. Because the first four link predictions (see Table 3) distinguished between subgroups that performed well versus poorly on some memory test, median splits were used to classify individuals as scoring high or low on memory tests. Those scoring at the median were assigned to whichever subgroup resulted in more evenly balanced sample sizes. The relevant correlations are summarized in Table 6. The link prediction for object nameability judgment (prediction 5 in Table 3) was evaluated by examining the correlation between this judg-

ment and name-distinct object recognition in the entire sample. As detailed below, all predictions were supported. (All were also supported in an analysis of agepartialled correlations, which are not reported here.) Link prediction 1: Word familiarity judgment and semantic retrieval As predicted, the accuracy of word familiarity judgment was related to recall of related nouns among children who performed below the median on the test of pseudoword repetition, but not among those who performed above the median on this test. This finding replicates a result reported by Merriman et al. (2006), but with a different measure of semantic retrieval. According to the dual criterion account, those children whose phonological WM operates rather inefficiently learn to judge word familiarity only if familiar words tend to evoke the retrieval of large amounts of semantic information. The more information retrieved, as measured by recall of related nouns, the more readily they learn to judge whether any particular word is one they know by whether or not they retrieve its meaning. The inefficiency of their phonological WM, as indicated by low pseudoword repetition scores, keeps them from learning the alternative criterion for this judgment. The null relation between word familiarity judgment and related recall among children with high phonological WM is consistent with the second part of link prediction 1. Because WM processes that support acquisition of the word form recognition criterion are sufficiently developed in this group, the nature of their semantic retrieval processes, which supports learning the other judgment criterion, does not affect how accurately they make the judgment. An alternative explanation is that the word familiarity judgments of the high phonological WM group had near-ceiling accuracy, and so restriction of range attenu-

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Table 6 Intercorrelations relevant to the link predictions Judgment–memory link Word familiarity—Related recall Word familiarity—Pseudo repetition Syntactic accept—Unrelated recall Syntactic accept—Pseudo repetition Object nameability—Object recognition

Groups Low phonological WM .56*(15) Low semantic retrieval .50*(14) Low phonological WM .59*(15) Weak semantic integration .55*(14) All children 58* (50)

High phonological WM .07 (14) High semantic retrieval .03 (15) High phonological WM .01 (14) Strong semantic integr. .29 (15)

Notes. The coefficients that were predicted to be significant are boldfaced. * Two-tailed p < .05. df are listed in parentheses.

ated the correlation between the judgments and related recall in this group. Judgment accuracy was somewhat greater in the high than in the low groups (Ms = .79 and .71, respectively). However, variability was comparable (SDs = .19 and .20, respectively), and so too was internal consistency (Cronbach as = .76 and .82, respectively). The internal consistency of related recall was not high (Cronbach a = .49), due in part to near-floor recall of the body part words (arm, leg, neck). Seventy-three percent of the children recalled none of these words. When related recall scores were recomputed with this list removed, internal consistency increased and was comparable for the low and high phonological WM groups (Cronbach as = .56 and .53, respectively). When this recall measure was used, link prediction 1 was still upheld; the measure was related to word familiarity judgment in the low phonological WM group, r(15) = .59, p < .05, but not in the high phonological WM group, r(14)= .20, NS. Link prediction 2: Word familiarity judgment and phonological WM As predicted, word familiarity judgment was related to pseudoword repetition among children who performed below the median on the related recall test, but not among those who performed well on this test. According to the dual criterion account, children for whom familiar words evoke only small amounts of semantic information learn to judge word familiarity accurately only if their processes for storing word forms in WM are well-developed. An efficient phonological WM promotes their learning to judge a word to be known based on whether they recognize its sound form. Their low levels of semantic retrieval, as indicated by their poorer related recall, make it unlikely that this group will have learned the alternative target generation criterion for this judgment.

The null correlation between word familiarity judgment and pseudoword repetition among the high semantic retrievers, which is consistent with the second part of link prediction 2, is attributed by the dual criterion account to the tendency for many in this group to learn the target generation criterion. The efficiency of their phonological WM processes, which affects learning the other criterion, does not affect how quickly they learn to judge a word to be known based on whether or not they retrieve its meaning. Support for the second part of link prediction 2 may be a result of restriction of range and low reliability in the word familiarity judgment and pseudoword repetition scores of the high semantic retrieval group, however. Regarding judgment scores, variability was somewhat lower in the high than in the low groups (SDs = .18 and .20, respectively), and so too was internal consistency (Cronbach as = .71 and .84, respectively). Regarding pseudoword repetition scores, variability and internal consistency were substantially lower in the high than in the low group (SDs = .14 and .22, respectively; Cronbach as = .15 and .70, respectively). Link prediction 3: Syntactic acceptability judgment and semantic integration As predicted, syntactic acceptability judgment was significantly correlated with recall of unrelated nouns triplets among those who performed poorly on the test of pseudoword repetition, but not among those who performed well on this test. According to the dual criterion account, the first groups’ processes for encoding and storing the sequence of word forms in a sentence are not sufficiently developed for them to learn the sentence form recognition procedure for judging syntactic acceptability. They learn to make such judgments accurately only if their processes for constructing and retrieving the semantic relations expressed in sentences are well-

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developed. Efficiency in the latter processes promotes learning the meaning generation criterion for such judgments. The null relation between syntactic acceptability judgment and recall of unrelated nouns among high phonological children, which is consistent with the second part of link prediction 3, is attributed by the dual criterion account to the advanced sentence form memory of this group. Those with highly efficient phonological WM tend to learn the sentence form recognition procedure for judging syntactic acceptability. Thus, the strength of their semantic integration tendencies, which bears on learning the other criterion, is unrelated to the accuracy of their syntactic acceptability judgments. Variability and internal consistency were lower in the unrelated recall scores of the high phonological WM group than the low phonological WM group (SDs = .11 and .18, respectively; Cronbach as = .09 and .73, respectively). The two groups did not differ much in this regard in their judgment scores (SDs = .19 and .18, respectively; Cronbach as = .54 and .48, respectively). So although the null correlation between unrelated recall and syntactic judgment in the high phonological WM group is consistent with the second part of link prediction 3, it could also reflect the unreliability of the unrelated recall scores in this group. Support for the first part of link prediction 3 constitutes indirect evidence for the validity of our novel claim about preschool recall. Young children’s recall of a short list of unrelated nouns after a brief period of interfering verbal activity was hypothesized to reflect the strength of their tendency to integrate the meanings of words in a sequence. Our finding that the level of such recall was associated with how accurately the low phonological WM group judged syntactic acceptability is consistent with this hypothesis, assuming that the higher levels of accuracy in this group were achieved through the use of the sentence meaning generation criterion. Link prediction 4: Syntactic acceptability judgment and phonological WM Consistent with the fourth link prediction, syntactic acceptability judgment was significantly correlated with pseudoword repetition among children who performed poorly on the unrelated recall test, but not among those who performed well on this test. According to the dual criterion account, semantic integration processes in the poor recallers are not sufficiently developed for them to have learned to use the sentence meaning generation procedure for judging syntactic acceptability. So they tend to learn to make such judgments accurately only if their processes for encoding and storing word forms (and sequential relations among them) in WM are well-developed. Efficiency in such processes promotes

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learning to use the sentence form recognition criterion for judging whether a sentence has been said ‘‘the right or wrong way around.’’ As already argued, although pseudowords are not sentences, evidence supports interpreting the ability to repeat them as an indication of the efficiency of sentence form encoding and storage processes (Gathercole et al., 1999). The null relation found between pseudoword repetition and syntactic acceptability judgment among those who recalled unrelated nouns the most successfully was also predicted by the dual criterion account. This result conforms to the second part of the link prediction 4. Because the semantic integration tendencies that support acquisition of the target generation procedure are sufficiently developed in these children, the level of development of the form memory processes that support acquisition of the cue recognition procedure should not affect how quickly they learn to make this judgment. Reliability may constitute a viable alternative explanation for the null correlation in the high unrelated recall group. Although the variability and internal consistency in the judgment scores of this group were somewhat greater than in the low unrelated recall group (SDs = .21 and .17, respectively; Cronbach as = .59 and .47, respectively), a much greater difference in the opposite direction was evident in the pseudoword repetition scores of these groups (SDs = .13 and .22, respectively; Cronbach as = .07 and .72, respectively). For link predictions 2, 3, and 4, those who performed well on one of the two memory measures referenced by the prediction tended to show low internal consistency in their performance on the other memory measure. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the internal consistency in children’s performance drops when they must shift away from their usual way of encoding words. For example, a child who usually pays more attention to word meaning than to word form would do well to concentrate on form in the pseudoword repetition task because the stimuli have no meaning. Inconsistency may arise in a particular memory test because a more adaptive, but less habitual attentional act conflicts with a less adaptive, but more habitual attentional act. Because of this conflict, children may waver in their relative attention to form and meaning from trial to trial. As already noted, low reliability of measurement may be the real reason that the results predicted by the second parts of links predictions 2, 3, and 4 were obtained. However, the pattern of reliability results is not a complete disappointment with respect to the dual criterion account because it does demonstrate a valuable characteristic of the account, namely, the potential to generate meaningful new hypotheses. By testing the account, the reliability pattern was discovered, and hypotheses about the nature of children’s habitual and non-habitual acts of attention were generated.

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Link prediction 5: Object nameability judgment and name-distinct object recognition As predicted by the dual criterion account, object nameability judgment was positively correlated with name-distinct object recognition in the entire sample of children. According to the dual criterion account, those with better-developed visual object recognition processes should outperform their peers on the recognition test and also be more likely to have learned the object recognition procedure for judging object nameability. Likewise, those with better-developed object name retrieval processes should outperform their peers on the recognition test and be more likely to have learned the name retrieval procedure for judging object nameability. Although each of the hypothesized memory processes may account for substantial variability in name-distinct object recognition performance, it is possible that only one does. Thus, although the fifth link prediction derived from the dual criterion account was supported, the results are also compatible with single criterion accounts of object nameability judgment. The initial development of this judgment in early childhood could depend entirely on acquisition of the object recognition criterion for making the judgment, which in turn, depends on the development of visual object recognition processes alone. Alternatively, development of the judgment could depend entirely on acquisition of the name retrieval criterion, which in turn, depends on the development of name retrieval processes alone. An important direction for future research will be to develop memory tests that rely differentially on visual object recognition processes and name retrieval processes, and administer these to preschool-age children so as to decide among the various models. Distinctiveness hypotheses The distinctiveness hypotheses not only presume that the dual criterion account is valid, but also that various

pairs of memory processes are independent of one another in particular groups of children. Any result that supports such a hypothesis is therefore evidence for the validity of both the dual criterion account and the memory independence assumption. Any result that is incompatible with such a hypothesis may reflect an error in the dual criterion account and/or derive from a relation between memory processes. Correlational results were consistent with distinctiveness hypotheses 1, 3, and 5, but not 2 or 4 (the data in each row of Table 7 corresponds with a different hypothesis). In the case of the odd-numbered hypotheses, a particular memory measure was more strongly correlated with the linguistic judgment specified by the dual criterion account than with the other two linguistic judgments. Regarding hypothesis 1, the results replicate and extend Merriman et al. (2006)’s finding that among children with low levels of phonological WM, magnitude of semantic retrieval correlates more strongly with word familiar judgment than with object nameability judgment. The support for hypotheses 1, 3, and 5 challenges the sufficiency of global explanations of the early development of linguistic judgment. These findings are not consistent with the possibility that the particular memory abilities referenced by these hypotheses just happen to be associated with some global skill, such as linguistic decentration (Hakes, 1980), or some type of knowledge that is important for linguistic judgment in general. If this were true, the memory measures would have been found to be related to all three judgments. Support for distinctiveness hypotheses 1, 3, and 5 is also not likely an artifact of variable reliability in the linguistic judgments over the various subgroups of children. The strongest correlation did not always involve the judgment with the greatest internal consistency (Cronbach alpha for each judgment in each group is reported in parentheses in Table 7). Also, despite the generally lower consistency of syntactic acceptability judgment, there was no evidence that its correlations with other measures were attenuated by low cross-situa-

Table 7 Correlation coefficients relevant to the distinctiveness hypotheses Group

Low phonological WM Low sementic retrievel Low phonological WM Weak sementic integration All children

Memory

N

Related recall Pseudoword Unrelated recall Pseudoword Object recognition

17 16 17 16 52

Judgment Word Fam.

Syntac acceptability

Object nameability

.56*(.82) .50*(.84) .29 (.82) .34 (.84) .41* (.86)

.26 (.48) .55* (.21) .59* (.48) .58* (.47) .23 (.48)

.11 (.86) .59* (.79) .20 (.86) .61* (.82) .58* (.89)

Notes. The coefficients that were hypothesized to be significant are boldfaced. Cronbach’s alphas for the judgments are listed in parentheses. * Two-tailed p < .05.

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tional reliability. The Cronbach alpha statistic likely underestimates the cross-situational reliability of this judgment. (The test-retest reliability of this judgment would need to be assessed to evaluate this possibility.) The unsupported distinctiveness hypotheses were both instances in which the correlations involving pseudoword repetition were not as predicted. Within the low semantic retrieval subgroup, the repetition measure was expected to be more strongly related to word familiarity judgment than to the other judgments (by hypothesis 2). The measure was found to be approximately equally related to all three. The higher-than-expected correlation with syntactic acceptability judgment may have been due to sampling error. The dual criterion account and memory independence assumption jointly imply that a positive, but smaller correlation should be found for this judgment in this particular subgroup. If semantic retrieval and semantic integration are independent memory skills, as the weak correlation found between related and unrelated recall implies, then roughly half of the children in the low semantic retrieval subgroup should be weak semantic integrators and half should be strong ones. By link prediction 4, a strong correlation should obtain among the weak integrators and a weak-at-best correlation should obtain among the strong integrators. If the data reported in the fourth line of Table 6 are used to estimate these two correlations (.55 and .29, respectively), the correlation coefficient for combination of these two groups would be expected to be .43 (i.e., the result of finding the mean Fisher-transformed values of.55 and .29, then converting the mean to a Pearson correlation coefficient). This expected value does not deviate that much from the coefficient for the relation in the low semantic retrieval subgroup (.55). The substantial correlation between pseudoword repetition and object nameability judgment among the low semantic retrievers (contra distinctiveness hypothesis 2) and among the weak semantic integrators (contra distinctiveness hypothesis 4) is another matter. By the dual criterion account and memory independence assumption, at most only a weak correlation should have been found in either subgroup. Merriman et al. (2006) had found pseudoword repetition to be more strongly correlated with word familiarity judgment than object nameability judgment within a low semantic retrieval group, which is consistent with distinctiveness hypothesis 2. Sampling error may partly explain the discrepancy between this finding and the current one. However, even when the results of these two studies are pooled, the average correlation between object nameability judgment and pseudoword repetition in the low semantic retrieval group is.48, p < .001. We propose that greater-than-expected correlations reflect a violation of the memory independence assump-

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tion rather than a problem in the dual criterion account. More specifically, we propose that the efficiency of phonological WM, which promotes learning the form recognition criteria for judging word familiarity and syntactic acceptability, is directly related to the efficiency of object name retrieval, which promotes learning the target retrieval criterion for judging object nameability (see Table 2). This conjecture is consistent with Baddeley and colleagues’ view that the primary function of phonological STM (which is the storage component of phonological WM) is language learning (Baddeley, Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998). According to this view, the reason that pseudoword repetition scores predict rate of vocabulary growth in early childhood is that the more efficiently children store instances of spoken words in working memory, the more rapidly the accessibility, or retrievability, of the LTM representations of these word forms increases. This argument implies that higher pseudoword repetition scores should also be associated with greater word or name retrieval efficiency. An argument can also be made for the reverse causal relationship between pseudoword repetition and word retrieval efficiency. Only high-wordlike pseudowords were used in the current test because most of the novel words that children hear are ‘‘wordlike.’’ High-wordlike pseudowords are repeated back more readily than lowwordlike ones (Gathercole, 1995; Merriman et al., 2006) presumably because they receive top-down support from LTM representations of similar-sounding familiar words. Therefore, it is likely that those children whose LTM representations of familiar word forms are the most accessible should tend to be better able to repeat back high-wordlike pseudowords. The hypothesis generation potential of the dual criterion account The dual criterion account yielded numerous hypotheses about memory-judgment correlations that were evaluated in the current study. The hypothesis-generating potential of the account goes well beyond this demonstration, however. One general claim that is based on the account and can be tested experimentally is that only the judgments of those who use a cue recognition criterion should be influenced by experiences that undermine the validity of the cue. Suppose various unfamiliar words were presented repeatedly to children in a situation that did not provide information about the words’ meanings, for example. This experience should increase the likelihood that those who rely on the word form recognition criterion would later judge that they know what these words mean (because the words evoke a recognition response), but should not affect the accuracy of those who use the word meaning generation criterion to make this judg-

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ment. Analogous experiments involving preexposure to unfamiliar types of stimuli could be conducted for object nameability and syntactic acceptability judgments. Another claim from the account that can be tested experimentally is that only the judgments of those who use the target generation criterion should be influenced by experiences that impede or facilitate the target generation process. As just one example, requiring children to engage in an oral task, such as counting, should reduce their accuracy in a concurrent object nameability judgment task to a greater extent if they use the name retrieval criterion than if they use the object recognition criterion. Some of these hypotheses can be extended to novel noun mapping. Children’s tendency to select an unfamiliar over a familiar kind of object as the referent of an unfamiliar name can be undermined by preexposing the unfamiliar object (Merriman et al., 1989; Merriman & Schuster, 1991). Children who rely on object recognition, rather than name retrieval, to judge object nameablity may be especially susceptible to this effect. Conversely, the mapping of those who rely on name retrieval might be more adversely affected if the familiar objects in the mapping paradigm were replaced by objects that had names that were recognizable, but could not be recalled (e.g., a child might be able to recognize the word stethoscope, but not be able to recall its name). Another promising direction for expanding the domain of the dual criterion account is to examine whether the individual differences identified by the account persist into later childhood or even adulthood. For example, delayed recall of lists of categoricallyrelated words may predict adults’ ability to judge whether they recognize the definitions of various low frequency words, especially among adults with below-average phonological WM efficiency. Also, individual differences in the memory processes that are central to the account may well be continuous with individual differences in processes that have been identified as underlying second language learning aptitude in older children and adults (Ehrman, 1998; Ellis & Sinclair, 1996; Skehan, 2002). The dual criterion account has the potential to generate claims regarding other kinds of metalinguistic cognition. Compared to children who use the form recognition criterion for word familiarity judgment, those who use the meaning generation criterion may be able to provide definitions (i.e., verbalized meanings) for a greater percentage of the words that they say they know. On the other hand, children who use the recognition criterion may make more accurate ‘‘feeling of knowing’’ judgments regarding whether they could recognize the name for an object that they cannot currently recall (Cultice, Somerville, & Wellman, 1983). The account could also be extended to judgments of linguistic similarity. Suppose children were asked to

judge which of two sentences (e.g., The car hit the truck and The car was hit by the truck) was more similar to a stimulus sentence (e.g., The truck was hit by the car). Those who use sentence form recognition to judge syntactic acceptability may give greater relative weight to syntactic similarity (which favors The car was hit by the truck) than to semantic similarity (which favors The car hit the truck) in this judgment compared to children who use sentence meaning generation to judge syntactic acceptability. The dual criterion account can generate novel hypotheses about the nature of early memory and its development. For example, given the account’s novel claim that unrelated recall reflects the strength of semantic integration tendencies, it is reasonable to hypothesize that unrelated recall (as well as syntactic acceptability judgment) should be positively correlated with the strength of the anterior N400 event-related potential component among those with low levels of phonological WM. This component has been shown to be evoked in young children by semantic incongruence or unrelatedness (Friedrich & Friederici, 2004; Torkildsen et al., 2007). Regarding developmental change in memory, if the account’s interpretation of unrelated and related recall is valid, then the absence of age differences in these memory tasks (see Table 3) would seem to imply that neither semantic retrieval nor semantic integration increase over the preschool years. Yet knowledge of word and sentence meaning must increase as a consequence of children’s experience producing and comprehending more and more language. So why do semantic retrieval and semantic integration appear not to increase as well? In keeping with the dual criterion account, we propose that just as individual differences exist in how children make linguistic judgments, they also exist in how children encode and later attempt to recall short lists of words (e.g., noun triplets). Some children primarily experience retrieval of semantic information about each word, whereas others primarily engage in semantic integration. (Although semantic integration requires some word meaning retrieval, it primarily involves constructing a grammatical case relation such as agent-patient between words.) Whether the names in a short sequence are categorically-related or not, hearing the names causes some children to primarily experience semantic retrieval, and to engage in little semantic integration. For other children, the sequence evokes the opposite response— more semantic integration and less semantic retrieval. The first type of response promotes superior recall of related names, but poorer recall of unrelated names. The second type of response promotes poorer recall of related names, but superior recall of unrelated names.

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If these hypotheses are valid, then among those children who receive below-the-median scores on unrelated recall (i.e., among those who allegedly engaged in less semantic integration), related recall should be positively correlated with age. Within this subgroup, the greater semantic knowledge that the older children have accumulated should cause them to experience more semantic retrieval than younger children, and so recall more related names than them. This prediction was confirmed, r(14)=.62, p < .01, g2 = .40. Likewise, among children who allegedly experienced little semantic retrieval, as reflected in their below-the-median scores on related recall, unrelated recall should be positively correlated with age. In this subgroup, the greater syntactic knowledge and experience in interpreting sentences that the older ones have accumulated should make them more likely, and better able, to integrate the unrelated names semantically, and so recall more of these names than the younger children. This prediction was also confirmed, r(14)=.45, one-tailed p < .03, g2 = .20. (A one-tailed test seems appropriate given that the prediction is generated by a hypothesis, and that there are no grounds for predicting that recall of unrelated names declines with age.) These findings further demonstrate the potential of the dual criterion account to generate hypotheses which may lead to important discoveries about children’s cognition. Although the dual criterion account has great potential, the evidence currently available for evaluating its claims consists entirely of concurrent correlations. Longitudinal correlational studies, training studies, and experiments are needed to further evaluate and refine the account. The least improvement over time in the accuracy of a judgment should be observed among those who show low levels of efficiency in both of the memory processes that allegedly promote acquisition of the judgment’s criteria. Youngsters who show high levels of efficiency in one of the two memory processes that are related to a judgment, but have not yet learned to make the judgment accurately, should be more responsive to training in the use of the criterion that their more efficient memory process supports than to training in the use of the other criterion.

Conclusions A new theory of the development of linguistic judgment in early childhood was presented. The theory, which expanded upon Merriman et al. (2006)’s dual criterion account of word familiarity judgment, has several important features. Unlike other accounts, it focuses on the procedures young children first learn for making linguistic judgments, and posits individual differences in these procedures. The theory also integrates the procedures into a general dual-criterion framework. Whether

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judging the familiarity of a word, the nameability of an object, or the syntactic acceptability of a sentence, preschool-age children are hypothesized to use either a cue recognition or target generation procedure. Some base their judgment on whether they recognize a relevant presented cue, whereas others decide based on whether they retrieve and/or construct what they have been asked to verify (i.e., a word meaning, an object name, or a sentence interpretation). Another unique feature of the theory is the claim that individual differences in the quality of specific memory processes have a direct causal impact on the particular procedure that a child first adopts for a particular linguistic judgment, and on how quickly the child comes to adopt the procedure. The dual criterion account is as much a theory of individual differences in early basic memory processes as a theory of individual differences in how early linguistic judgments are made. The account was evaluated by testing five predictions concerning specific memory-judgment correlations in 3and 4-year-olds. All of these predictions were supported. These results, which replicate and extend those of a previous investigation (Merriman et al., 2006), constitute important validity evidence for the pairs of criteria proposed for each judgment, for the memory process hypothesized to promote acquisition of each criterion, and for the methods used to measure each memory process. Confirmation of the predictions also provides indirect validation of the claim that the level of development of a memory process affects children’s ability to reflect on its products (Gombert, 1992; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). In contrast to global accounts, the dual criterion account implies that early linguistic judgments are independent of each other to the extent that the memory abilities that support the judgments are independent of each other. Five distinctiveness hypotheses that were jointly derived from the dual criterion account and the assumption of memory independence were tested. Three were supported (the odd-numbered ones in Table 3), thus providing further validation of the account as well as evidence that certain pairs of memory processes are independent in early childhood. Regarding the two distinctiveness hypotheses that were not supported, an important direction for future research will be to test the proposal that a strong association between phonological WM and name retrieval efficiency is the reason that children who tend to learn the form recognition criteria for word familiarity and syntactic acceptability judgment also tend to learn the name retrieval criterion for object nameability judgment. This proposal is just one among many hypotheses that can be derived by applying the dual criterion account to empirical findings. These hypotheses, if valid, would reveal new structure in children’s memory and linguistic judgment. They merit the attention of future research.

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Appendix A Depicted objects used in the name-distinct object recognition test Targets Teddy bear Blocks Snake Gloves Leaves Cat Twig Cheeries Lamp Sheep

Distracters Bike Clock Duck Apple Shark Ice cream Lion Pants Sneakers Phone

Toast Umbrella Cookies Dress Shovel Elephant Boots Guitar Bug Jacket

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