Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.02.003
Accepted author manuscript, 1.59 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Special issue › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Special issue › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Semantic processing of actions at 9 months is linked to language proficiency at 9 and 18 months
AU - Kaduk, Katharina
AU - Bakker, Marta
AU - Juvrud, Joshua
AU - Gredebäck, Gustaf
AU - Westermann, Gert
AU - Lunn, Judith
AU - Reid, Vincent Michael
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.02.003
PY - 2016/11
Y1 - 2016/11
N2 - The current study uses event-related potential methodologies to investigate how social–cognitive processes in preverbal infants relate to language performance. We assessed 9-month-olds’ understanding of the semantic structure of actions via an N400 event-related potential (ERP) response to action sequences that contained expected and unexpected outcomes. At 9 and 18 months of age, infants’ language abilities were measured using the Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventory (SECDI). Here we show that 9-month-olds’ understanding of the semantic structure of actions, evidenced in an N400 ERP response to action sequences with unexpected outcomes, is related to language comprehension scores at 9 months and is related to language production scores at 18 months of age. Infants who showed a selective N400 response to unexpected action outcomes are those who are classed as above mean in their language proficiency. The results provide evidence that language performance is related to the ability to detect and interpret human actions at 9 months of age. This study suggests that some basic cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing of sequential events that are shared between two conceptually different cognitive domains and that pre-linguistic social understanding skills and language proficiency are linked to one another.
AB - The current study uses event-related potential methodologies to investigate how social–cognitive processes in preverbal infants relate to language performance. We assessed 9-month-olds’ understanding of the semantic structure of actions via an N400 event-related potential (ERP) response to action sequences that contained expected and unexpected outcomes. At 9 and 18 months of age, infants’ language abilities were measured using the Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventory (SECDI). Here we show that 9-month-olds’ understanding of the semantic structure of actions, evidenced in an N400 ERP response to action sequences with unexpected outcomes, is related to language comprehension scores at 9 months and is related to language production scores at 18 months of age. Infants who showed a selective N400 response to unexpected action outcomes are those who are classed as above mean in their language proficiency. The results provide evidence that language performance is related to the ability to detect and interpret human actions at 9 months of age. This study suggests that some basic cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing of sequential events that are shared between two conceptually different cognitive domains and that pre-linguistic social understanding skills and language proficiency are linked to one another.
KW - Action understanding
KW - Semantic processing
KW - N400
KW - Language acquisition
KW - Nc
KW - ERP
U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.02.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.02.003
M3 - Special issue
VL - 151
SP - 96
EP - 108
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
SN - 0022-0965
ER -