ABSTRACT
The initial study of quick word learning was conducted by Carey and Bartlett, who were motivated to demonstrate that children could learn words more quickly than the existing studies indicated. The frequency of input in this study is somewhat higher than in other studies of fast mapping. This chapter reveals that implications for models of word learning are, capped by a recapitulation of the Quick Incidental Learning (QUIL) model. QUIL is very constrained to only referents that share a strong perceptual similarity or to referents that match children's conceptual biases. A well-documented phenomenon of young children's language acquisition is their rapid acquisition of new word meanings during the preschool years. A fundamental axiom of the contemporary psycholinguistic literature is that word meanings are essentially categorical in nature. As defined by Clark, it is impossible to disconfirm the contrast hypothesis with empirical evidence of children's word learning, as sameness of reference per se is insufficient to establish sameness of meaning.
