What Makes a Cup, a Cup? Generalizing Novel Words

Healthy

The goal of this work is to address increasing concerns about young children's digital media exposure and language outcomes by testing how the times course of word learning unfolds in digital environments and the cascading impact of digital media on vocabulary outcomes. The findings will have important implications for understanding when and where optimal word learning from media can occur.

The goal of the current proposal is to identify how digital media alters the mechanisms of word learning and subsequently impacts the lexical foundation on which a child's vocabulary is built. Specifically, the proposal aims to identify the impact of digital media on 1) the processes underlying real-time word learning, and 2) the processes of language generalization and vocabulary growth. Specific Aim 1 will use a novel word learning task to test children's ability to map and retain new words within and between digital media (2D images on a tablet) and real world objects (3D objects). Specific Aim 2 will probe children's novel label generalization abilities within and between 2D and 3D modalities using a novel noun generalization task. Further, individual differences in a child's prior technology experience will be measured and used to predict overall vocabulary as well as performance within and between each task. This Clinical Trial record focuses on Specific Aim 2.

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