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When is a "Neem" not a "Neem"?: The influence of sentence structure on word-object association in infancy Lloyd, Valerie Louise
Abstract
This research was designed to address the question of whether 14-month old infants’ ability to associate word-object pairings is influenced by sentence structure. Lloyd, Werker, and Cohen (1993) have shown that 14-month old girls notice changes in word-object pairings in an habituation/dishabituation paradigm, but 8-, 10- and 12-month old infants and 14-month old boys do not. Using video images, infants were habituated to two instances of word-object pairings. A set of test trials was then shown: One in which the word-object pairing changed, and one in which it remained the same. The present research used the same habituation/dishabituation procedure in two experiments with 14-month old infants. In Experiment 1 the nonsense words were presented alone, and in Experiment 2 the nonsense words were embedded in a set of carrier phrases. The first critical question was whether the infants would notice that the word-object pairing had been changed. The second critical question was whether this ability varied across conditions: word in isolation vs word in a set of carrier phrases. The results from Experiment 1 provide clear evidence that 14-month old girls, but not boys, are able to make word-object associations when the object labels are presented in isolation. Findings from Experiment 2, in which the target words were presented in a set of carrier phrases, indicate that the particular carrier phrases presented in this study do not facilitate word-learning at this age.
Item Metadata
Title |
When is a "Neem" not a "Neem"?: The influence of sentence structure on word-object association in infancy
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
1993
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Description |
This research was designed to address the question of whether 14-month old infants’
ability to associate word-object pairings is influenced by sentence structure. Lloyd, Werker, and
Cohen (1993) have shown that 14-month old girls notice changes in word-object pairings in an
habituation/dishabituation paradigm, but 8-, 10- and 12-month old infants and 14-month old boys
do not. Using video images, infants were habituated to two instances of word-object pairings. A
set of test trials was then shown: One in which the word-object pairing changed, and one in
which it remained the same. The present research used the same habituation/dishabituation
procedure in two experiments with 14-month old infants. In Experiment 1 the nonsense words
were presented alone, and in Experiment 2 the nonsense words were embedded in a set of carrier
phrases. The first critical question was whether the infants would notice that the word-object
pairing had been changed. The second critical question was whether this ability varied across
conditions: word in isolation vs word in a set of carrier phrases. The results from Experiment 1
provide clear evidence that 14-month old girls, but not boys, are able to make word-object
associations when the object labels are presented in isolation. Findings from Experiment 2, in
which the target words were presented in a set of carrier phrases, indicate that the particular
carrier phrases presented in this study do not facilitate word-learning at this age.
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Extent |
1035929 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-02-23
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0087272
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
1994-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.