Figure 1.

A framework depicting the relationship among input (utterance U and context C), language knowledge (L), best guess of meaning ($\widehat{M}$), and behavior informed by meaning (B) as processing and learning proceed over developmental time. Function arguments indicate dependencies in the causal graph (i.e., what inputs are used in processing or updating). Blue squares highlight the Process function, and green squares highlight the Update function. The asterisk indicates that utterances, contexts, and behaviors are potentially observable by the researcher, though in practice only snapshots of each are recorded with existing methods (see Figure 2).