Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-13T21:39:38.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inhibitory Control and Preschoolers’ Use of Irregular Past Tense Verbs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2020

Amanda Rose YUILE  and
Mark A SABBAGH
Amanda Rose YUILE*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Mark A SABBAGH
Affiliation:
Queen's University, Canada
*
*Address for correspondence: Amanda Rose Yuile, E-mail: amandah3@illinois.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigated whether children's inhibitory control (IC) is associated with their ability to produce irregular past tense verb forms as well as learn from corrective feedback following overregularization errors. Forty-eight 3;6 to 4;5 year old children were tested on the irregular past tense and provided with adult corrective input via models of correct use or recasts of errors following ungrammatical responses. IC was assessed with a three-item battery of tasks that required suppressing a prepotent response in favor of a non-canonical one. Results showed that IC was associated with children's initial production of irregular forms, but not associated with their post-feedback production. Findings are discussed in terms of current theories of past tense use and acquisition.

Keywords

past tenseexecutive functionmorphologylanguage acquisition
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 480 - 498
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benson, J. E., Sabbagh, M. A., Carlson, S. M., & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Individual differences in executive functioning predict preschoolers’ improvement from theory-of-mind training. Developmental Psychology, 49(9), 1615–1627. doi:10.1037/a0031056CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berko, J. (1958). The child's learning of English morphology. WORD, 14(2-3), 150–177. doi:10.1080/00437956.1958.11659661CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, C., & Razza, R. P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78(2), 647–663. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01019CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bull, R., Johnston, R.S., & Roy, J.A. (1999). Exploring roles of the visual-spatial sketch pad and central executive in children's arithmetical skills: Views from cognition and developmental neuropsychology. Developmental Neuropsychology, 15(3), 421–442. doi:10.1080/87565649909540759CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bull, R., & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children's mathematics ability: Inhibition, switching, and working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology,19(3), 273–293. doi:10.1207/S15326942DN1903_3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Butler, K.M., & Zacks, R.T. (2006). Age deficits in the control of prepotent responses: Evidence for an inhibitory decline. Psychology and Aging, 21(3), 638–643. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.21.3.638CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, S.M. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28(2), 595–616. doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2802_3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, S.M., Davis, A.C., & Leach, J.G. (2005). Executive function and symbolic representation in preschool children. Psychological Science 16(8), 609–616. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01583.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, S.M., & Moses, L.J. (2001) Individual differences in inhibitory control and children's theory of mind. Child Development, 71(4), 1032–1053. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00333CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E.V. (2014). Pragmatics in acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 41(S1), 105–116. doi:10.1017/S0305000914000117CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chouinard, M.M., & Clark, E.V. (2003). Adult reformulations of child errors as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language, 30(3), 637–669. doi:10.1017/S0305000903005701CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M. (2007). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition. Minneapolis, MN: NCS Pearson.Google Scholar
Espy, K. A., Mcdiarmid, M. M., Cwik, M. F., Stalets, M. M., Hamby, A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). The contribution of executive functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26(1), 465–486. doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2601_6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ervin, S. (1964). Imitation in children's language. In Lenneberg, E. H. (Ed.), New directions in the study of language (pp. 163–198). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Farrar, M.J. (1990). Discourse and the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language, 17(3), 607–624. doi:10.1017/S0305000900010904CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gandolfi, E., & Viterbori, P. (2020). Inhibitory Control Skills and Language Acquisition in Toddlers and Preschool Children. Language Learning. doi:10.1111/lang.12388CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holroyd, C. B., & Coles, M. G. (2002). The neural basis of human error processing: Reinforcement learning, dopamine and the error-related negativity. Psychological Review, 109, 679–709.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughes, C., & Devine, R.T. (2015). Individual differences in theory of mind from preschool to adolescence: Achievements and directions. Child Development Perspectives, 9(3), 149–153. doi:10.1111/cdep.12124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibbotson, P., & Kearvell-White, J. (2015). Inhibitory control predicts grammatical ability. Plos One,10(12): e0145030. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145030CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khanna, M. M., & Boland, J. E. (2010). Childrens use of language context in lexical ambiguity resolution. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(1), 160–193. doi:10.1080/17470210902866664CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P.B., & Christensen, R.H.B. (2016). lmerTest: tests in linear mixed effects models. R package version 2.0-33.Google Scholar
Levy, B.J., & Anderson, M.C. (2002). Inhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(1), 299–305. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01923-XCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, B.J., McVeigh, N.D., Marful, A., & Anderson, M.C. (2007). The role of retrieval-induced forgetting during second-language acquisition. Psychological Science, 18(1), 29–34. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01844.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Magnuson, J.S., Dixon, J.A., Tanenhaus, M.K., & Aslin, R.N. (2007). The dynamics of lexical competition during spoken word recognition. Cognitive Science, 31(1), 133–156. doi:10.1080/03640210709336987CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maratsos, M. (2000). More overregularizations after all: New data and discussion on Marcus, Pinker, Ullman, Hollander, Rosen & Xu. Journal of Child Language, 27, 183–212. doi:10.1017/s0305000999004067CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marcus, G. F. (1993). Negative evidence in language acquisition. Cognition, 46, 53–85. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(93)90022-nCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marcus, G. F., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T., Xu, F., & Clahsen, H. (1992). Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57(4), 1–178. doi:10.2307/1166115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maslen, R. J., Theakston, A. L., Lieven, E. V., & Tomasello, M. (2004). A dense corpus study of past tense and plural overregularization in English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 1319–1333. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2004/099)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (2011). Words and Rules (1999/2011). New York, NY: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., & Ullman, M. T. (2002). The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(11), 456–463. doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(02)01990-3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Proctor-Williams, K., & Fey, M.E. (2007). Recast density and acquisition of novel irregular past tense verbs. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 1029–1047. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2007/072)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meghini, D., Addona, F., Costanzo, F., & Vicari, S. (2010). Executive functions in individuals with Williams syndrome. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 54(5), 418–432. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01287.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nilsen, E. S., & Graham, S. A. (2009). The relations between children's communicative perspective-taking and executive functioning. Cognitive Psychology,58(2), 220–249. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2008.07.002CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noreen, S., & MacLeod, M.D. (2015). What do we really know about cognitive inhibition? Task demands and inhibitory effects across a range of memory and behavioral tasks. PLoS ONE, 10(8): e0134951. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134951CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing (version 3.0.2) [Software]. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Ramscar, M. (2002). The role of meaning in inflection: Why the past tense does not require a rule. Cognitive Psychology, 45(1), 45–94. doi:10.1016/S0010-0285(02)00001-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramscar, M., & Yarlett, D. (2007). Linguistic self-correction in the absence of feedback: A new approach to the logical problem of language acquisition. Cognitive Science 31(6), 927–960. doi:10.1080/03640210701703576CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reed, M.A., Pien, D.L., & Rothbart, M.K. (1984). Inhibitory self-control in preschool children. Merill-Palmer Quarterly, 30(2), 131–147.Google Scholar
Saxton, M. (2000). Negative evidence and negative feedback: Immediate effects on the grammaticality of child speech. First Language, 20, 221–252. doi:10.1177/014272370002006001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxton, M. (2005). ‘Recast’ in a new light: Insights for practice from typical language studies. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 21(1), 23–38. doi:10.1191/0265659005ct279oaCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxton, M., Backley, P., & Gallaway, C. (2005). Negative input for grammatical errors: Effects after a lag of 12 weeks. Journal of Child Language, 32(3), 643–672. doi:10.1017/S0305000905006999CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saxton, M., Kulcsar, B., Marshall, G., & Rupra, M. (1998). Longer-term effects of corrective input: An experimental approach. Journal of Child Language, 25(3), 701–721. doi:10.1017/s0305000998003559CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strapp, C.M., Bleakney, D.M., Helmick, A.L., & Tonkovich, H.M. (2008). Developmental differences in the effects of negative and positive evidence. First Language, 28(1), 35–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strapp, C.M., & Federico, A. (2000). Imitations and repetitions: What do children say following recasts? First Language, 20, 273–290. doi:10.1177/014272370002006003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, W. (2015). Neuronal reward and decision signals: From theories to data. Physiological Reviews, 95, 853–951. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00023.2014CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomas, M.S.C., Grant, J., Barham, Z., Gsodl, M., Laing, E., Lakusta, L., Tyler, L.K., Grice, S., Paterson, A., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2001). Past tense formation in Williams syndrome. Language and Cognitive Processes 16(2-3), 143–176. doi:10.1080/01690960042000021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2000). First steps toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics, 11(1/2), 61–82. doi:10.1515/cogl.2001.012Google Scholar
Woodard, K., Pozzan, L., & Trueswell, J. C. (2016). Taking your own path: Individual differences in executive function and language processing skills in child learners. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 141, 187–209. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2015.08.005CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed