The Relation Between Preschoolers' Vocabulary Development and Their Ability to Predict and Recognize Words

Relative contributions of predictive vs. associative processes to infant looking behavior during language comprehension

Numerous developmental findings suggest that infants and toddlers engage predictive processing during language comprehension. However, a significant limitation of this research is that associative (bottom-up) and predictive (top-down) explanations are not readily differentiated. Following adult studies that varied predictiveness relative to semantic-relatedness to differentiate associative vs. predictive processes, the present study used eye-tracking to begin to disentangle the contributions of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms to infants' real-time language processing. Replicating prior results, infants (14-19 months old) use successive semantically-related words across sentences (e.g., eat, yum, mouth) to predict upcoming nouns (e.g., cookie). However, we also provide evidence that using successive semantically-related words to predict is distinct from the bottom-up activation of the word itself. In a second experiment, we investigate the potential effects of repetition on the findings. This work is the first to reveal that infant language comprehension is affected by both associative and predictive processes.

Neural oscillations during predictive sentence processing in young children

The neural correlates of predictive processing in language, critical for efficient sentence comprehension, is well documented in adults. Specifically, adults exhibit alpha power (9-12 Hz) suppression when processing high versus low predictability sentences. This study explores whether young children exhibit similar neural mechanisms. We analyzed EEG data from 29 children aged 3-5 years listening to sentences of varying predictability. Our results revealed significant neural oscillation differences in the 5-12 Hz range between high and low predictability sentences, similar to adult patterns. Crucially, the degree of these differences correlated with children's language abilities. These findings are the first to demonstrate the neural basis of predictive processing in young children and its association with language development.

Do Children (and Adults) Benefit From a Prediction Error Boost in One-Shot Word Learning?

Influential theories and computational models suggest error-based learning plays an important role in language acquisition: Children learn new words by generating predictions about upcoming utterances and revising those predictions when they are erroneous. Critically, revising stronger (rather than weaker) predictions should further enhance learning. Although previously demonstrated in adults, such prediction error boost has not been conclusively shown in children. To close this gap, we tested 107 participants between the ages of 5 and 10. We found little evidence that word learning in this age group benefits from a prediction error boost. Moreover, we also failed to replicate previous evidence for such an effect in adults. Based on a detailed task analysis, we suggest the variation in adult findings may be partly explained by differences in encoding strategies and that, relatedly, the protracted development of the episodic memory system might explain why children do not experience robust benefits from having stronger (rather than weaker) predictions disconfirmed.

Prediction during language comprehension: what is next?

Prediction is often regarded as an integral aspect of incremental language comprehension, but little is known about the cognitive architectures and mechanisms that support it. We review studies showing that listeners and readers use all manner of contextual information to generate multifaceted predictions about upcoming input. The nature of these predictions may vary between individuals owing to differences in language experience, among other factors. We then turn to unresolved questions which may guide the search for the underlying mechanisms. (i) Is prediction essential to language processing or an optional strategy? (ii) Are predictions generated from within the language system or by domain-general processes? (iii) What is the relationship between prediction and memory? (iv) Does prediction in comprehension require simulation via the production system? We discuss promising directions for making progress in answering these questions and for developing a mechanistic understanding of prediction in language.

Infants' lexical comprehension and lexical anticipation abilities are closely linked in early language development

Theories across cognitive domains propose that anticipating upcoming sensory input supports information processing. In line with this view, prior findings indicate that adults and children anticipate upcoming words during real-time language processing, via such processes as prediction and priming. However, it is unclear if anticipatory processes are strictly an outcome of prior language development or are more entwined with language learning and development. We operationalized this theoretical question as whether developmental emergence of comprehension of lexical items occurs before or concurrently with the anticipation of these lexical items. To this end, we tested infants of ages 12, 15, 18, and 24 months (N = 67) on their abilities to comprehend and anticipate familiar nouns. In an eye-tracking task, infants viewed pairs of images and heard sentences with either informative words (e.g., eat) that allowed them to anticipate an upcoming noun (e.g., cookie), or uninformative words (e.g., see). Findings indicated that infants' comprehension and anticipation abilities are closely linked over developmental time and within individuals. Importantly, we do not find evidence for lexical comprehension in the absence of lexical anticipation. Thus, anticipatory processes are present early in infants' second year, suggesting they are a part of language development rather than solely an outcome of it.

Drivers of Lexical Processing and Implications for Early Learning

Understanding words in unfolding speech requires the coordination of many skills to support successful and rapid comprehension of word meanings. This multifaceted ability emerges before our first birthday, matures over a protracted period of development, varies widely between individuals, forecasts future learning outcomes, and is influenced by immediate context, prior knowledge, and lifetime experience. This article highlights drivers of early lexical processing abilities while exploring questions regarding how learners begin to acquire, represent, and activate meaning in language. The review additionally explores how lexical processing and representation are connected while reflecting on how network science approaches can support richly detailed insights into this connection in young learners. Future research avenues are considered that focus on addressing how language processing and other cognitive skills are connected.

Do Children Use Multi-Word Information in Real-Time Sentence Comprehension?

Meaning in language emerges from multiple words, and children are sensitive to multi-word frequency from infancy. While children successfully use cues from single words to generate linguistic predictions, it is less clear whether and how they use multi-word sequences to guide real-time language processing and whether they form predictions on the basis of multi-word information or pairwise associations. We address these questions in two visual-world eye-tracking experiments with 5- to 8-year-old children. In Experiment 1, we asked whether children generate more robust predictions for the sentence-final object of highly frequent sequences (e.g., "Throw the ball"), compared to less frequent sequences (e.g., "Throw the book"). We further examined if gaze patterns reflect event knowledge or phrasal frequency by comparing the processing of phrases that have the same event structure but differ in multi-word content (e.g., "Brush your teeth" vs. "Brush her teeth"). In the second study, we employed a training paradigm to ask if children are capable of generating predictio.ns from novel multi-word associations while controlling for the overall frequency of the sequences. While the results of Experiment 1 suggested that children primarily relied on event associations to generate real-time predictions, those of Experiment 2 showed that the same children were able to use recurring novel multi-word sequences to generate real-time linguistic predictions. Together, these findings suggest that children can draw on multi-word information to generate linguistic predictions, in a context-dependent fashion, and highlight the need to account for the influence of multi-word sequences in models of language processing.