TY - JOUR
T1 - Individual differences in nonverbal prediction and vocabulary size in infancy
AU - Reuter, Tracy
AU - Emberson, Lauren
AU - Romberg, Alexa
AU - Lew-Williams, Casey
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Casey Lew-Williams ( R03HD079779 ) and to Lauren Emberson ( R00HD076166-02 ). We thank the participating families and members of the Princeton Baby Lab. We are especially grateful to Jean Bellamy and Fernanda Fernandez for coding.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - Children who generate and update verbal predictions have larger vocabularies, suggesting that prediction may be a mechanism that supports language learning. We hypothesize that this relation is not confined to the domain of language, but instead signals a broader individual difference in information processing. To investigate this possibility, we tested infants (n = 50) in the early stages of vocabulary development (12–24 months) on their ability to generate and update nonverbal, visual predictions. In an eye-tracking task, a central fixation reliably preceded a peripheral target. Then, halfway through the experiment, the peripheral target began appearing on the opposite side. We assessed infants’ proficiency in initiating anticipatory eye movements before and after the switch, and found that infants with larger vocabularies did not generate more predictions overall, but were more efficient in updating predictions to the new target side. These findings establish a link between nonverbal prediction and vocabulary in infancy, and suggest a promising means of addressing whether or not prediction abilities are causally related to language learning.
AB - Children who generate and update verbal predictions have larger vocabularies, suggesting that prediction may be a mechanism that supports language learning. We hypothesize that this relation is not confined to the domain of language, but instead signals a broader individual difference in information processing. To investigate this possibility, we tested infants (n = 50) in the early stages of vocabulary development (12–24 months) on their ability to generate and update nonverbal, visual predictions. In an eye-tracking task, a central fixation reliably preceded a peripheral target. Then, halfway through the experiment, the peripheral target began appearing on the opposite side. We assessed infants’ proficiency in initiating anticipatory eye movements before and after the switch, and found that infants with larger vocabularies did not generate more predictions overall, but were more efficient in updating predictions to the new target side. These findings establish a link between nonverbal prediction and vocabulary in infancy, and suggest a promising means of addressing whether or not prediction abilities are causally related to language learning.
KW - Individual differences
KW - Language development
KW - Learning
KW - Nonverbal
KW - Prediction
KW - Visual
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.006
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.006
M3 - Article
C2 - 29604470
AN - SCOPUS:85044583575
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 176
SP - 215
EP - 219
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
ER -