Objects and places are foundational spatial domains represented in human symbolic expressions, like drawings, which show a prioritization of depicting small-scale object-shape information over the large-scale navigable place information in which objects are situated. Is there a similar object-over-place bias in language? Across six experiments, adults and 3- to 4-year-old children were asked either to extend a novel noun in a labeling phrase, to extend a novel noun in a prepositional phrase, or to simply match pictures. To dissociate specific object and place information from more general figure and ground information, participants either saw scenes with both place information (a room) and object information (a block in the room), or scenes with two kinds of object information that matched the figure-ground relations of the room and block by presenting an open container with a smaller block inside. While adults showed a specific object-over-place bias in both extending novel noun labels and matching, they did not show this bias in extending novel nouns following prepositions. Young children showed this bias in extending novel noun labels only. Spatial domains may thus confer specific and foundational biases for word learning that may change through development in a way that is similar to that of other word-learning biases about objects, like the shape bias. These results expand the symbolic scope of prior studies on object biases in drawing to object biases in language, and they expand the spatial domains of prior studies characterizing the language of objects and places.

Young children's intuitions about the meanings of novel nouns have revealed foundational biases in language learning. Nevertheless, existing work on such word-learning biases has focused primarily on only one spatial domain to which nouns might refer—objects—not the large-scale and navigable places in which objects are situated. Previous research has nevertheless shown that adults and children treat objects and places differently not only in recognition and navigation tasks, but also in symbolic tasks, like drawing production. In a noun-extension task, we thus evaluate young children's and adults' word-learning biases across these two spatial domains—objects and places—and show that young children and adults treat objects and places differently in language: Young children and adults preferentially extend novel nouns to objects over places. This bias suggests a specific role for spatial domain in word learning and may reflect greater attention to objects over places in symbolic contexts like language.