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Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN › Conference paper › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN › Conference paper › peer-review
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TY - CONF
T1 - Environmental effects on parental gesture and infant word learning
AU - Cheung, Rachael W
AU - Hartley, Calum
AU - Monaghan, Padraic
PY - 2019/7/24
Y1 - 2019/7/24
N2 - How infants determine correct word-referent pairings within complex environments is not yet fully understood. The combination of multiple cues, including gestures, may guide learning as part of a communicative exchange between parent and child. Gesture use and word learning are interlinked, withearly child gesture predicting later vocabulary size, and parental gesture predicting child gesture. However, the extent to which parents alter gesture cues during word learning according to referential uncertainty is not known. In this study, we manipulated the number of potential referents across conditions during a word learning task with 18–24-month-olds, and explored how changes in parental gesture use translated into infant word learning. We demonstrate that parents alter their gesture use according to the presence, but not the degree,of referential uncertainty. We further demonstrate that a degree of variability in the number of potential referents appears to benefit word learning.
AB - How infants determine correct word-referent pairings within complex environments is not yet fully understood. The combination of multiple cues, including gestures, may guide learning as part of a communicative exchange between parent and child. Gesture use and word learning are interlinked, withearly child gesture predicting later vocabulary size, and parental gesture predicting child gesture. However, the extent to which parents alter gesture cues during word learning according to referential uncertainty is not known. In this study, we manipulated the number of potential referents across conditions during a word learning task with 18–24-month-olds, and explored how changes in parental gesture use translated into infant word learning. We demonstrate that parents alter their gesture use according to the presence, but not the degree,of referential uncertainty. We further demonstrate that a degree of variability in the number of potential referents appears to benefit word learning.
KW - word learning
KW - gesture
KW - vocabulary development
KW - parent-infant interaction
M3 - Conference paper
SP - 212
EP - 218
T2 - Proceedings of the 41st Cognitive Science Society Conference
Y2 - 24 July 2019 through 27 July 2019
ER -