Language-mediated visual attention in toddlers

Abstract:: Language plays an important role in driving visual attention. The aim of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how language may mediate visual attention in toddlers, who begin to learn about the world through language communication. In Part I of the thesis, I examine the time course and order in which different types of stored linguistic representations are activated during spoken-word recognition. In Experiments 1–4, I demonstrate that the four-picture adult visual world paradi...
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Language:: English
Keywords:: language development

phonology

Infant

growth curve analysis

eye-tracking

selective attention

semantics

visual world paradigm
Subjects:: Differentiation (Developmental psychology)

Experimental Psychology
UUID:: uuid:2a99a12c-81ef-4899-a28c-e1d73fb5678c
Deposit date:: 2016-10-19

Related item:: Spoken-word recognition in 2-year-olds: The tug of war between phonological and semantic activation
Description:: Previous studies demonstrate that while toddlers can match words with their referent before the age of one, they only begin to extract phonologically- and semantically-related information from speech later in the second year. However, the order and manner in which this information is extracted remains unresolved. In two experiments, we adapted the adult four-picture Visual World Paradigm (VWP) (Huettig & McQueen, 2007) for toddler testing: toddlers hear a spoken word and see pictures that are phonologically-related, semantically-related or unrelated to the spoken-word. We demonstrate that, similar to adults, 24- to 30-month-old toddlers attended to a phonological match faster than a semantic match, and that these differences hold irrespective of whether the semantic match is taxonomic or thematic in character. Our findings suggest that language shapes toddlers’ cognition by biasing their selective attention to relevant information in the visual world, which is likely to enhance the efficiency of mental activities, such as learning and making analogical inferences.

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Thesis