Fast mapping
In cognitive psychology, fast mapping is the term used for the hypothesized mental process whereby a new concept is learned (or a new hypothesis formed) based only on minimal exposure to a given unit of information (e.g., one exposure to a word in an informative context where its referent is present). Fast mapping is thought by some researchers to be particularly important during language acquisition in young children, and may serve (at least in part) to explain the prodigious rate at which children gain vocabulary.