Rosie Nurse
Papers
1
Total Citations
6
H-Index
1
About
Rosie Nurse investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying early word learning, with a focus on how children navigate ambiguity and perceptual distraction. Her research reveals that extraneous features—like object color—can hinder rather than help vocabulary acquisition, challenging assumptions about how children leverage visual cues. In her highly cited 2019 paper, "When Object Color Is a Red Herring," Nurse demonstrates that holding color constant between target and distractor objects actually impedes learning, as children must suppress irrelevant perceptual information to succeed at referent selection. This work, with 6 citations, reduces the problem space of category learning by showing that not all perceptual consistency benefits word mapping. Nurse’s contributions illuminate the delicate balance between attention and inference in early development, offering practical insights for educators and parents. Her findings underscore that effective word learning often requires ignoring the obvious—a counterintuitive but crucial lesson for understanding how young minds build language.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
- 1