Children learn words in a social environment, facilitated in part by social cues from caregivers, such as eye-gaze and gesture. A common assumption is that social cues convey either perceptual or social information, depending on the age of the child. In this review of research on word learning and social cues during early childhood, we propose that (1) the functions of social cues are not categorically perceptual or social, and (2) social cues support word learning in four interdependent ways: by helping children to orient attention, extract relevant information, disambiguate referents, and understand others' referential intent. We conclude with specific recommendations for theory-building and suggest that the dynamic and complex functions of social cues need to be accounted for in any complete theory of word learning.

中文翻译：

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社会线索在儿童单词学习过程中的动态作用

孩子们在社交环境中学习单词，这在一定程度上得益于照顾者的社交暗示，例如眼神和手势。一个常见的假设是，社交线索传达的是感知信息或社交信息，具体取决于孩子的年龄。在这篇关于儿童早期单词学习和社交线索的研究综述中，我们提出 (1) 社交线索的功能不是绝对的感知或社交，以及 (2) 社交线索以四种相互依存的方式支持单词学习：通过帮助儿童引导注意力，提取相关信息，消除所指对象的歧义，理解他人的指称意图。我们总结了理论构建的具体建议，并建议在任何完整的单词学习理论中都需要考虑社交线索的动态和复杂功能。