Why would a special FM process exist in adults, when it does not appear to exist in children?

ABSTRACT

Cooper Greve, and Henson (this issue)  caution restraint before accepting that a fast mapping (FM) process exists in adults. We welcome this, but would also add that the original rationale for studying FM in adults is not currently supported by developmental research. Despite the claims of several adult FM researchers, there is little evidence from developmental word learning research for a special hippocampus-independent FM process critical for children’s word learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Fast mapping
• hippocampus
• word learning
• memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.