A new study from our lab, in collaboration with John Trueswell and Charles Yang at University of Pennsylvania, asks whether we learn new word meanings by gradually integrating all the clues available to us (like Sherlock Holmes) or merely by bumbling from one plausible idea to the next until one finally sticks (more like the Pink Panther’s Inspector Clouseau, who makes a cameo in the paper!).

A series of four studies tests how adults successfully guess a word’s meaning as they hear it used in multiple contexts—and provides surprising support for the bumbling, Clouseau approach. In these studies, word learners don’t gradually narrow in on the right meaning: instead, their successful guesses seem to emerge from the current context alone.

Read the full paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749596X25000865?dgcid=author