Young children learn new words more easily when they are presented in more predictable ways, suggests a study in Current Biology. Researchers tested more than 100 2-year-olds. First, they showed the toddlers a video screen with four closed boxes. Then, one by one, the boxes opened to reveal unfamiliar objects. That sequence repeated five times, with the boxes opening in the same order. On the sixth round, the toddlers heard the novel names of the objects as each box opened (bosa, tulver, sarn and pisk). In some trials, the boxes opened in the same order that they had during the first five repetitions, while in other trials the boxes opened in an unexpected sequence. When tested later, the children were, on average, more likely to remember the correct names for objects they had learned when the boxes opened in the predictable order than in the unexpected one. (Monitor on Psychology)

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