48540
2019
2019
eng
17
8
6
article
Royal Society
London
1
--
2019-08-07
--
Consistency of co-occurring actions influences young children’s word learning learning
Communication with young children is often multimodal in nature, involving, for example, language and actions. The simultaneous presentation of information from both domains may boost language learning by highlighting the connection between an object and a word, owing to temporal overlap in the presentation of multimodal input. However, the overlap is not merely temporal but can also covary in the extent to which particular actions co-occur with particular words and objects, e.g. carers typically produce a hopping action when talking about rabbits and a snapping action for crocodiles. The frequency with which actions and words co-occurs in the presence of the referents of these words may also impact young children’s word learning. We, therefore, examined the extent to which consistency in the co-occurrence of particular actions and words impacted children’s learning of novel word–object associations. Children (18 months, 30 months and 36–48 months) and adults were presented with two novel objects and heard their novel labels while different actions were performed on these objects, such that the particular actions and word–object pairings always co-occurred (Consistent group) or varied across trials (Inconsistent group). At test, participants saw both objects and heard one of the labels to examine whether participants recognized the target object upon hearing its label. Growth curve models revealed that 18-month-olds did not learn words for objects in either condition, and 30-month-old and 36- to 48-month-old children learned words for objects only in the Consistent condition, in contrast to adults who learned words for objects independent of the actions presented. Thus, consistency in the multimodal input influenced word learning in early childhood but not in adulthood. In terms of a dynamic systems account of word learning, our study shows how multimodal learning settings interact with the child’s perceptual abilities to shape the learning experience.
Royal Society Open Science
10.1098/rsos.190097
31598229
2054-5703
wos:2019
190097
WOS:000482674500012
Eiteljoerge, SFV (reprint author), Univ Goettingen, Dept Psychol Language, Gottingen, Germany.; Eiteljoerge, SFV (reprint author), Leibniz Sci Campus Primate Cognit, Gottingen, Germany., sarah.eiteljoerge@psych.uni-goettingen.de
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), research [FOR 2253, EL 253/7-1]; German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the RTG 2070 Understanding Social RelationshipsGerman Research Foundation FoundationGerman Research Foundation (DFG); Open Access Publication Funds of the Gottingen University
2020-12-07T15:18:01+00:00
sword
importub
filename=package.tar
2418eac393149f4a2742247a6064d9b4
false
true
Sarah Fe Vivian Eiteljoerge
Maurits Adam
Birgit Elsner
Nivedita Mani
eng
uncontrolled
word learning
eng
uncontrolled
actions
eng
uncontrolled
consistency
eng
uncontrolled
variability
eng
uncontrolled
cross-domain influences
Psychologie
Referiert
Department Psychologie
Import
Gold Open-Access
DOAJ gelistet
48491
2019
2019
eng
22
8
14
article
PLoS
San Fransisco
1
--
2019-08-08
--
Word-object and action-object association learning across early development
Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children’s and adults’ word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., “Look, a Tanu”) and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants’ target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development.
PLoS one
10.1371/journal.pone.0220317
31393901
1932-6203
wos:2019
e0220317
WOS:000485002500026
Eiteljoerge, SFV (reprint author), Univ Goettingen, Psychol Language, Gottingen, Germany.; Eiteljoerge, SFV (reprint author), Leibniz Sci Campus Primate Cognit, Gottingen, Germany., sarah.eiteljoerge@psych.uni-goettingen.de
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation)German Research Foundation (DFG) [FOR 2253, EL 253/7-1]; German Research FoundationGerman Research Foundation (DFG); Gottingen University
2020-12-02T15:45:48+00:00
sword
importub
filename=package.tar
c8798002ec291d1f608f617950721db8
false
true
Sarah F. V. Eiteljoerge
Maurits Adam
Birgit Elsner
Nivedita Mani
Psychologie
Referiert
Department Psychologie
Import
Gold Open-Access
DOAJ gelistet