The Benefits of Labeling in Fast Mapping and Explicit Encoding

The role of verbal labels in the assimilation of information on novel objects depending on the speech learning strategy was studied by assessing the effectiveness of the recognition of novel objects learned using fast mapping and explicit coding strategies, taking oculomotor activity into account. A total of 32 subjects were presented with visual images of eight new plant fruits, each one eight times, with auditory presentation of a unique labels in 50% of cases and a general verbal labels in the other 50%. Visual search of a target image among distractors was used as test task. The findings indicated that the fast mapping provided faster acquisition of new words than explicit encoding. The unique verbal labels of new fruits was found to have a positive influence on performance of the visual search task, this type of designation having greater significance being characteristic of fast mapping in contrast to explicit encoding.