THE MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY BIAS IN CHILDRENS WORD LEARNING - A REPLY

My reply to Woodward and Markman's (1990) commentary on the monograph that I coauthored with Bowman (Merriman & Bowman, 1989) has three parts. First, I elaborate on the aspect of our position that they liked the most-namely, our conceptualization of the Mutual Exclusivity bias in children's word learning as a default assumption that can be maintained by four strategies. Second, I present an updated review of the factors that affect whether a particular strategy will be used by children who are 2 1 2 years or older. Woodward and Markman accepted some of our claims about the way the bias is manifest after toddlerhood, but made a few mistakes in summarizing evidence and ignored some of our proposals. Finally, I consider what was Woodward and Markman's least favorite part of the monograph-namely, our conclusion that children who are less than 2 1 2 years old lack the bias. I retrace the steps that Bowman and I took in reaching this conclusion, respond to specific criticisms, and acknowledge that the case for the bias in toddlers is stronger than we thought, though still not completely convincing. I emphasize that, at most, toddlers have a weak bias that has little impact on their solution to the problem of overextension. © 1991.