Reinforcement Look at matched picture after sound ends & it moves 10 trials (5 of each pairing)

1. Names that are not words: older infants still associate non-linguistic sounds with pictures. Katie Alcock, Kirsty Krawczyk Lancaster University • Reinforcement • Look at matched picture after sound ends & it moves • 10 trials (5 of each pairing) • 2 or 4 blocks (2 pairs of words, 2 pairs of swoops) • Participants • 31 infants did 4 blocks • 35 infants did 2 blocks (2 pairs of swoops) • 24 infants were controls and heard only one word and only one swoop across 2 blocks • no possible matching picture • Children • Recruited at birth in local hospital • Aged 20-22 months (mean 21.16, s.d. .25) • 45 boys and 45 girls • Results • Proportion of looking time to correct picture: • Words • acking vs papping significantly greater than 0.5 (t24 = 3.09, p = .005) • tutty vs chetty not greater (t29 = 1.65, p = .11) • Swoops • Combined swoops trials significantly greater than 0.5 (t57 = 2.41, p = .019) • Reaction time to correct and incorrect picture • Words • Significant difference overall (t58 = 11.90, p < .001) • Swoops • Significant difference overall (t31 = 5.51, p < .001) • But looking faster to “incorrect” i.e. static picture • Association with other variables • Significant correlations between proportion of correct looking on swoop blocks and: • Receptive language on Preschool Language Scale (r221= .559, p = .008) • Repetition of nonwords (Roy & Chiat, 2004 - r216 = .517, p = .04) • Symbolic play (Saudino et al 1998 - r237 = .35, p = .034) • No correlation between swoop blocks and productive language or nonverbal cognitive ability • No significant correlations with correct looking on words blocks • Learning that one picture will move and looking at that? • Looking time and reaction time for control group • No difference between picture that could move and other picture • Discussion • Associate word or swoop with picture • Prefer to look at moving picture • But think sound refers to static picture? (Houston-Price & Nakai, 2004) • Not just learning that one picture will move • Applies with swoops as well • Children heard to attempt imitation of swoops! • Association with other abilities • More with receptive language than productive language • But not specifically language abilities? • Conclusion • Can measure individual differences in strength/rate of association of a word with a situation • Children can continue to associate a non-speech sound with a situation • well into 2nd year of life • Is this really “word” learning? • Some word pairs seem to be learned well • Others do not, and no significant correlation with language ability • But nonverbal associations with expected variables • including symbolic abilities • References • Aslin, R. N. (1989). Discrimination of frequency transitions by human infants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 86(2), 582-590. • Graham, S. A., & Kilbreath, C. S. (2007). It's a sign of the kind: Gestures and words guide infants' inductive inferences. Developmental Psychology, 43(5), 1111-1123. • Houston-Price, C., & Nakai, S. (2004). Distinguishing novelty and familiarity effects in infant preference procedures. Infant and Child Development, 13(4), 341-348. • Namy, L. L., & Waxman, S. R. (2002). Patterns of spontaneous production of novel words and gestures within an experimental setting in children ages 1;6 and 2;2. Journal of Child Language, 29(4), 911-921. • Roy, P., & Chiat, S. (2004). A prosodically controlled word and nonword repetition task for 2-to 4-year-olds: Evidence from typically developing children. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 47(1), 223-234. • Saudino, K. J., Dale, P. S., Oliver, B., Petrill, S. A., Richardson, V., Rutter, M., et al. (1998). The validity of parent-based assessment of the cognitive abilities of 2-year-olds. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 16(3), 349-363. • Woodward, A. L., & Hoyne, K. L. (1999). Infants' learning about words and sounds in relation to objects. Child Development, 70(1), 65-77. • Introduction • Vocabulary burst: • Late in 2nd year of life • Word-object associations • Word-situation associations • Does a label need to be a spoken word? • Not in sign language • Not early in development • Sound-object associations • Woodward & Hoyne, 1999 • Presented novel word and novel toy or novel sound and novel toy • Asked children to choose: • Can you get me the toma? • Can you get me one of these ( squeak)? • 13 months - associate either with a toy • 20 months - only associate word with toy • Interpretation • Initially children will associate various input with objects • Narrow this down to be only spoken words • Graham & Kilbreath (2007) and Namy & Waxman (2002) - similar findings with gesture • initial acceptance of both word and gesture • by 22 or 26 months word is preferred • Current study • Investigating individual differences in • word learning • auditory processing • graded learning task • not all or nothing • Setup • Two pictures (out of a set of 8) • 3 sec silence then sound • Word: • Look! Look at the chetty/tutty! • Or swoop x 3 • short pure-tone transitions of different sizes (Aslin 1989) • followed by longer static-frequency pure tones • Comparison tone with 350Hz transition, test tones with 75Hz or 150Hz (closer = harder)