Maritza Gomez - Sigma Xi 2013 Virtual Research Expo
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Transcript of Maritza Gomez - Sigma Xi 2013 Virtual Research Expo
Maritza S. GomezUndergraduate Student Researcher (Class of 2014)
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Majors: Psychology, Linguistics
University of Rochester
The role of parental labeling in early language development
2013 Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Showcase
March 18-23, 2013
Introduction
Background
Significance
Research questions
External linguistic input required
* Infants require external linguistic input to
acquire their first languages
* Experienced language users provide infants
with particular sounds, words, and
grammatical rules for their target language
* Example: Word an infant will learn for “milk”
depends upon the language environment
(e.g., leche in Spanish,laitin French)
Parents as primary input providers
* Parental labeling behavior plays a very important role in children’s early language learning
* More parental language input thought to yield faster word learning(e.g., Hurtado et al. 2008, Fernald et al. 2006)
Previous studies of word learning
* Previous work focused on how infants solve
mapping problem using distributional
statistics
* Infants employ cross-situational statistics to
rapidly learn word-object pairings(e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008; Yu & Smith, 2011)
* Input is typically thought of as a running
stream of word- and object co-occurances
that unfolds over time—independently of
what the infant thinks or does
Proposed alternative possibility
* Parents could adjust what they say to
their infants as a function of their
infants’ changing knowledge states
* Could potentially give infants a boost
in process of learning first language
* Parents could be providing learning
material that is “just right” for efficient
learning
Research questions
* Is parental language
input dynamically
related to the infant’s
knowledge state?
* Are parents more
likely to label objects
for which their infants
already have some
existing knowledge?
Methods
Data collection
Analyses
Data collection
* Worked with
research team to
collect video data of
infants and parents
engaged in
naturalistic play
* Head-mounted
camera sets on
infant and parent
captured video
Volunteer subjects
* Parents with infants recruited
from the Rochester, NY area
* Ages 12- to 15-
months-old (M =
13.4, N =12)
Data collection
* In each 3-minute trial, parent and infant
provided with 4 to 8 toys
* Each toy set contained a mixture of both
familiar objects (e.g., ball) and unfamiliar
objects (e.g., lobster)
Labels and vocab surveys
* In each trial, parents naturally provided
labels for toys in the scene
* Each label was recorded
* Vocabulary surveys also collected from
parents after play sessions
* Surveys asked which words infants understood
* Two analyses conducted to test whether parents were more likely to use labels their infants understood
Study 1: Difference of
means
Difference-of-means test methods
t-test results
Study 1: Analysis
* Computed the mean number of labels a
parents for two different object
categories:
Known—objects for which infant knew the label
Unknown—objects for which infant did not know the label
* Significance of difference tested with
Welch’s t-test (independent samples)
Study 1: Results
Known Unknown
Child's Knowledge of Labels
Nu
mb
er
of
La
bels
Pro
du
ce
d b
y P
are
nt
02
46
81
0
* p< .05
Study 1: Results and conclusions
* Plot shows parents use significantly more labels for objects that are known (familiar) to their infants than for those that are unknown (unfamiliar)
* But is this difference due to some factor other than infants’ knowledge (e.g., maybe the fact that older infants knew more labels drove the effect)?
* Second analysis controls for a number of relevant factors
Study 2: Generalized
linear mixed model
GLMM analysis methods
GLMM results
Study 2: Analysis
General linear mixed model to test whether child’s knowledge of the label predicts number of parental labels, controlling for:
* Age
* Total number of objects present in trial
* Total number of labels parent produced in
trial
* Factor for random subject effects
Study 2: Results
Study 2: Results and conclusions
* Infants’ knowledge of the label was a significant predictor of the number of times a parent used that label
* Effect was significant, even controlling for other factors (e.g., infants’ age, number of objects present)
* Number of labeling events (control variable) was also significant; parents who produced lots of labels were more likely to produce a particular object label
Summary and future
directions
Summary
Discussion
Future directions
Summary and discussion
* Results evidence a dynamic relationship between parental labeling behavior and infant’s vocabulary knowledge
* Could either be the case that parents are more likely to use labels that infants understand, or it could be the case that infants are quicker to learn labels that parents use more often
* Future work in progress will disentangle two possible explanations for correlation reported here
Future directions
* Follow-up research will collect measures of parental productions and children’s vocabulary in the home
* This work will allow us to collect greater quantity of data at multiple time points
* Aim is to determine to what degree parents’ labeling behavior drives children’s lexical development
Potential impact of research
* Research aims to better understand what type of learning environments are most conducive to language learning
* Work will yield normative baselines for language development
* Baselines can be used to develop more effective language therapies for children with delayed language development
Acknowledgements
Thank you to:
* My research project advisors, Dr. Richard N. Aslin and Celeste Kidd
* Rochester Baby Lab research staff, especially lab manager Holly Palmeri and postdocs Dr. Steven T. Piantadosi and Dr. Lauren Emberson
* LocalLocal.tvfor video of infants in lab
* Volunteer parents and infants for participating in this research
Thank you.