Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

How do individuals learn language when there are so many possible potential referents for each word? Prediction-basedtheories of language learning propose that predictions enable individuals to learn from implicit negative evidence bycomparing the predictions to outcomes. However, the role of prediction errors for learning has yet to be established.Traditionally, prediction errors have been believed to hinder learning. Recently though, prediction errors have been as-sociated with improved novel word acquisition in cross situational learning. This present study used a cross-situationalword learning task to examine the relation between prediction error-based processes during word learning and vocabularysize. The results showed that learners who switched their gaze more quickly from the non-target to the target image whenthey had to detect and correct prediction errors had higher productive vocabularies. This research supports the theory thatproductive vocabulary is strongly tied to predictive processes.