TY - JOUR
T1 - Infants' lexical comprehension and lexical anticipation abilities are closely linked in early language development
AU - Reuter, Tracy
AU - Mazzei, Carolyn
AU - Lew-Williams, Casey
AU - Emberson, Lauren L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Lauren Emberson (R00HD076166-02, McDonnell Foundation AWD1005451) and to Casey Lew-Williams (R01HD095912, R03HD079779), and from the National Science Foundation to Tracy Reuter (DGE1656466). We thank all families that participated in this study. We are also grateful to Claire Robertson for her assistance with stimuli, to research assistants at the Princeton Baby Lab for their help with data collection and to Dr. Sabrina Burr with help in revising the manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interest with regard to the funding source for this study.
Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Lauren Emberson (R00HD076166‐02, McDonnell Foundation AWD1005451) and to Casey Lew‐Williams (R01HD095912, R03HD079779), and from the National Science Foundation to Tracy Reuter (DGE1656466). We thank all families that participated in this study. We are also grateful to Claire Robertson for her assistance with stimuli, to research assistants at the Princeton Baby Lab for their help with data collection and to Dr. Sabrina Burr with help in revising the manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interest with regard to the funding source for this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Infancy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Congress of Infant Studies.
PY - 2023/5/1
Y1 - 2023/5/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1111/infa.12534
DO - 10.1111/infa.12534
M3 - Article
C2 - 36808682
AN - SCOPUS:85148416128
SN - 1525-0008
VL - 28
SP - 532
EP - 549
JO - Infancy
JF - Infancy
IS - 3
ER -