AUTHOR=Yang Jiale , Dobkins Karen , Wagner Katie , Sakuta Yuiko , Kanazawa So , Yamaguchi Masami K. 

TITLE=Slow mapping in color word acquisition across languages: evidence from Japanese children

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Developmental Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/developmental-psychology/articles/10.3389/fdpys.2025.1641593

DOI=10.3389/fdpys.2025.1641593

ISSN=2813-7779

ABSTRACT=It is well-known that children have a delay between their first production of color words and acquisition of adult-like understanding. A previous study showed that this delay could be attributed to a process of gradually converging on language-specific color word boundaries. In this study, we tested this account in a second language, Japanese. We presented 12 color samples to children and then conducted production and comprehension tasks to check whether children have adult-like understanding of color words. Our results were consistent with previous findings showing that children before acquiring adult-like understanding tend to use color words systematically as overextensions of adult meanings. These results indicate that the delay between production and adult-like understanding of color words reflects a gradual process of learning language-specific color boundaries, potentially shared across languages.