Cognitive Development 33 (2015) 99–107 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cognitive Development Effects of causal information on the early word learning: Efficiency and longevity Amy E. Booth * Northwestern University, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Word learning Causal information Preschoolers Memory Attention Encoding Elaboration a b s t r a c t This study examines two accounts of why causal information facil- itates early learning, one focusing on its attracting attention at the time of encoding and the other on its enhancing memory through coherent elaboration. Three-year-olds were taught novel words along with either causally-rich or causally-weak descriptions of their referents until each child reached a specific learning criterion. Children reached this criterion in fewer trials in the causally-rich than in the causally-weak condition. However, when children’s memory for the newly learned words was subsequently tested after a lengthy delay, no differences in performance were detected. Causal information therefore appears to support early word learn- ing primarily by enhancing the efficiency of initial encoding, rather than by enhancing the longevity of lexical-semantic representa- tions. These results provide greater support for the attention-based than the coherent elaboration-account and further suggest that encoding may be a principal limiting factor in children’s word learn- ing. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Ample evidence demonstrates that causal information (i.e., information that reveals the effective powers of an object or the nature of its contingent interactions) plays a prominent role in structuring * Correspondence to: Roxelyn & Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern Uni- versity, 2240 North Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, United States. Tel.: +1 847 467 0331; fax: +1 847 491 2523. E-mail addresses: a-booth@northwestern.edu, AmyBooth@utexas.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.05.001 0885-2014/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.