Infants' expectations about object label reference

The aim of this research was to examine whether infants at the early stages of lexical development were sensitive to the word-category linkage. In Exp eriment 1, 16-to 19-month-old infants were requested to match a target with either a basic-level or a thematic match, with or without a novel label. S timuli were presented using the preferential looking paradigm. Infants in t he Novel Label condition looked significantly longer at the basic-level mat ch than infants in the No Label condition. In Experiment 2; infants were pr esented with a target, followed by a basic-level match and a superordinate- level match with or without a novel label. Again, infants in the Novel Labe l condition looked significantly longer at the basic-level match than infan ts in the No Label condition. Taken together, these findings indicate that infants initially assume that novel words label basic-level categories and thereby do honour the word-category linkage.