Novel names extend for how long preschool children sample visual information

Longer looks for language: Novel labels lengthen fixation duration for 2-year-old children

The language infants hear guides their visual attention; infants look more to objects when they are labeled. However, it is unclear whether labels also change the way infants attend to and encode those objects-that is, whether hearing an object label changes infants' online visual processing of that object. Here, we examined this question in the context of novel word learning, asking whether nuanced measures of visual attention, specifically fixation durations, change when 2-year-olds hear a label for a novel object (e.g., "Look at the dax") compared with when they hear a non-labeling phrase (e.g., "Look at that"). Results confirmed that children visually process objects differently when they are labeled, using longer fixations to examine labeled objects versus unlabeled objects. Children also showed robust retention of these labels on a subsequent test trial, suggesting that these longer fixations accompanied successful word learning. Moreover, when children were presented with the same objects again in a silent re-exposure phase, children's fixations were again longer when looking at the previously labeled objects. Finally, fixation duration at first exposure and silent re-exposure were correlated, indicating a persistent effect of language on visual processing. These effects of hearing labels on visual attention point to the critical interactions involved in cross-modal learning and emphasize the benefits of looking beyond aggregate measures of attention to identify cognitive learning mechanisms during infancy.

Vocabulary and automatic attention: The relation between novel words and gaze dynamics in noun generalization

Words direct visual attention in infants, children, and adults, presumably by activating representations of referents that then direct attention to matching stimuli in the visual scene. Novel, unknown, words have also been shown to direct attention, likely via the activation of more general representations of naming events. To examine the critical issue of how novel words and visual attention interact to support word learning we coded frame-by-frame the gaze of 17- to 31-month-old children (n = 66, 38 females) while generalizing novel nouns. We replicate prior findings of more attention to shape when generalizing novel nouns, and a relation to vocabulary development. However, we also find that following a naming event, children who produce fewer nouns take longer to look at the objects they eventually select and make more transitions between objects before making a generalization decision. Children who produce more nouns look to the objects they eventually select more quickly following the naming event and make fewer looking transitions. We discuss these findings in the context of prior proposals regarding children's few-shot category learning, and a developmental cascade of multiple perceptual, cognitive, and word-learning processes that may operate in cases of both typical development and language delay. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Examined how novel words guide visual attention by coding frame-by-frame where children look when asked to generalize novel names. Gaze patterns differed with vocabulary size: children with smaller vocabularies attended to generalization targets more slowly and did more comparison than those with larger vocabularies. Demonstrates a relationship between vocabulary size and attention to object properties during naming. This work has implications for looking-based tests of early cognition, and our understanding of children's few-shot category learning.

The temporal structure of parent talk to toddlers about objects

Toddlers learn words in the context of speech from adult social partners. The present studies quantitatively describe the temporal context of parent speech to toddlers about objects in individual real-world interactions. We show that at the temporal scale of a single play episode, parent talk to toddlers about individual objects is predominantly, but not always, clustered. Clustered speech is characterized by repeated references to the same object close in time, interspersed with lulls in speech about the object. Clustered temporal speech patterns mirror temporal patterns observed at longer timescales, and persisted regardless of play context. Moreover, clustered speech about individual novel objects predicted toddlers' learning of those objects' novel names. Clustered talk may be optimal for toddlers' word learning because it exploits domain-general principles of human memory and attention, principles that may have evolved precisely because of the clustered structure of natural events important to humans, including human behavior.

Multimodal parent behaviors within joint attention support sustained attention in infants

Parents support and scaffold more mature behaviors in their infants. Recent research suggests that parent-infant joint visual attention may scaffold the development of sustained attention by extending the duration of an infant's attention to an object. The open question concerns the parent behaviors that occur within joint-attention episodes and support infant sustained attention to an object. In the study, parent-infant dyads played with objects on a tabletop while their eye-gaze was recorded with head-mounted eye-trackers. Parent hand contact with the objects as well as speech were coded and analyzed to identify the presence of parent touch and talk during bouts of infant visual attention. This study, consistent with prior research, showed that joint attention is associated with longer infant visual attention. The relevant parent behaviors considered, parent talk and touch, not only were highly likely to occur when both the parent and infant visually attended to the same object, but were also associated with infant attention to an object that was longer than infant attention that did not include these parent behaviors. Parent talk was the most potent behavior that coincided with longer infant looks. In sum, joint attention extends infant attention and joint attention involves more than mutual coordination of eye-gaze, it involves multimodal parent behaviors coordinated with the infant's visual attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).