The use of the mutual exclusivity constraint was examined in
three-year-old and six-year-old children who were either monolingual in
English (N=32) or bilingual in English/Urdu (N=32)
or in
English/Greek (N=32). Three tests of the constraint were used:
disambiguation, rejection, and restriction. On the disambiguation test,
the mutual exclusivity bias was significantly more evident in five- and
six-year-old monolingual children than in their same-age bilingual
peers. Monolingual children were also more likely than bilingual
children to reject a new name for a familiar object. However, using a
restriction test, neither monolingual nor bilingual children readily
accepted and restricted typical names for hybrid objects. Developmental
differences were also found, as older (five- to six-year-old) monolingual
children's responses on the tests were generally more consistent with
the
constraint than younger (three- to four-year-old) children's responses.
Nevertheless, bilingual children did use the constraint, but not to the
extent of monolingual children.