Temporal and spatial concepts in child language: conventional and configurational.

Full Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the temporal and spatial systems of child language. Configurational time/space refers to the location of events/objects relative to referent events/objects (e.g., before/after or across/along) and conventional time/space refers to the specification of cycles/directions and the measurement of duration/distance (e.g., winter/fall or North/South). The research was designed to determine how configurational and conventional notions of time and space emerge in the child's language. The average age of the children in the cross-sectional design was:
3;9, 6:7, and 8:7. The children received a comprehension test that required them to match a sentence with a picture. In general, configurational contrasts were easier to comprehend than conventional contrasts, and, within the configurational problems, location requiring a single referent was easier than location requiring multiple referents. There was no overall difference between temporal and spatial dimensions. The role of conceptual development was discussed within the context of a comparison between first and second language acquisition.

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Author information

Author/s: Weist, Richard M (RM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, SUNY College, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of psycholinguistic research (J Psycholinguist Res), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-May; vol 31 (issue 3) : pp 195-210

Dates: Created 2002/07/02; Completed 2003/02/10; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12092709, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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