Becoming word meaning experts: Infants' processing of familiar words in the context of typical and atypical exemplars

How do infants become word meaning experts? This registered report investigated the structure of infants' early lexical representations by manipulating the typicality of exemplars from familiar animal categories. 14- to 18-month-old infants (N = 84; 51 female; M = 15.7 months; race/ethnicity: 64% White, 8% Asian, 2% Hispanic, 1% Black, and 23% multiple categories; participating 2022–2023) were tested on their ability to recognize typical and atypical category exemplars after hearing familiar basic-level category labels. Infants robustly recognized both typical (d = 0.79, 95% CI [0.54, 1.03]) and atypical (d = 0.70, 95% CI [0.46, 0.94]) exemplars, with no significant difference between typicality conditions (d = 0.14, 95% CI [−0.08, 0.35]). These results support a broad-to-narrow account of infants' early word meanings. Implications for the role of experience in the development of lexical knowledge are discussed.