Contrast information could be useful for verb learning, but few studies have examined children's ability to use this type of information. Contrast may be useful when children are told explicitly that different verbs apply, or when they hear two different verbs in a single context. Three studies examine children's attention to different types of contrast as they learn new verbs. Study 1 shows that 3.5-year-olds can use both implicit contrast (“I'm meeking it. I'm koobing it.”) and explicit contrast (“I'm meeking it. I'm not meeking it.”) when learning a new verb, while a control group's responses did not differ from chance. Study 2 shows that even though children at this age who hear explicit contrast statements differ from a control group, they do not reliably extend a newly learned verb to events with new objects. In Study 3, children in three age groups were given both comparison and contrast information, not in blocks of trials as in past studies, but in a procedure that interleaved both cues. Results show that while 2.5-year-olds were unable to use these cues when asked to compare and contrast, by 3.5 years old, children are beginning to be able to process these cues and use them to influence their verb extensions, and by 4.5 years, children are proficient at integrating multiple cues when learning and extending new verbs. Together these studies examine children's use of contrast in verb learning, a potentially important source of information that has been rarely studied.

中文翻译：

---

注意动词学习中的显性和隐性对比

对比信息可能对动词学习有用，但很少有研究检查儿童使用此类信息的能力。当孩子被明确告知应用不同的动词时，或者当他们在一个上下文中听到两个不同的动词时，对比可能会很有用。三项研究调查了儿童在学习新动词时对不同类型对比的关注。研究 1 表明，3.5 岁的孩子可以同时使用隐式对比（“我很温柔。我很喜欢它。”）和显式对比（“我很温柔。我不温柔。”）在学习一个新动词时，对照组的反应与偶然性没有区别。研究 2 表明，即使这个年龄的孩子听到明确的对比陈述与对照组不同，他们也不能可靠地将新学到的动词扩展到有新对象的事件。在研究 3 中，三个年龄组的儿童都获得了比较和对比信息，不像过去的研究那样在试验块中，而是在两个线索交错的过程中。结果表明，虽然 2.5 岁的孩子在被要求进行比较和对比时无法使用这些线索，但到 3.5 岁，儿童开始能够处理这些线索并使用它们来影响他们的动词扩展，到 4.5 岁，孩子们在学习和扩展新动词时能够熟练地整合多种线索。这些研究一起检查儿童在动词学习中使用对比的情况，这是很少研究的潜在重要信息来源。结果表明，虽然 2.5 岁的孩子在被要求进行比较和对比时无法使用这些线索，但到 3.5 岁，儿童开始能够处理这些线索并使用它们来影响他们的动词扩展，到 4.5 岁，孩子们在学习和扩展新动词时能够熟练地整合多种线索。这些研究一起检查儿童在动词学习中使用对比的情况，这是很少研究的潜在重要信息来源。结果表明，虽然 2.5 岁的孩子在被要求进行比较和对比时无法使用这些线索，但到 3.5 岁，孩子们开始能够处理这些线索并使用它们来影响他们的动词扩展，到 4.5 岁，孩子们在学习和扩展新动词时能够熟练地整合多种线索。这些研究一起检查儿童在动词学习中使用对比的情况，这是很少研究的潜在重要信息来源。