Contextual repetition facilitates word learning via fast mapping

•Contextual repetition during fast mapping aids subsequent word learning.•Children learn words if targets presented with the same competitor objects repeatedly.•If targets presented in varying contexts, word learning is more difficult.•‘Desirable difficulties’ in the learning context influence children's learning.

The current study explores whether contextual repetition during fast mapping facilitates word learning. Three-year-old children completed fast mapping and test trials using a touchscreen computer. For half of the children, the non-targets (competitors) repeated across learning trials and for other children there was no repetition. All children received the same test trials. Children who experienced contextual repetition, that is, children for whom the competitors repeated during the initial fast mapping task, demonstrated word learning. These data demonstrate that children's word learning is facilitated by the presence of extraneous yet predictable information in the initial fast mapping task.