Category learning with(out) language: congenital deafness as a critical test for the role of language input in early category learning

有（无）语言的类别学习：先天性耳聋是语言输入在早期类别学习中的作用的关键测试

• 批准号: ES/W009226/1
• 负责人: Teodora Gliga
• 金额: $ 101.82万
• 依托单位: University of East Anglia
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FW009226%2F1
• 关键词: Category; learning; out; language; congenital

When born into hearing families, profoundly deaf infants have little access to the language used in their homes. Cochlear implantation is now the most frequent intervention route, yet, despite surgery being offered as early as 9 months of age and improvements in the acoustics of implants, delays in language persist into childhood. Importantly, exposure to sign language prior to implantation benefits both later oral language and general cognitive development, but we have poor understanding of why this is the case. We propose to investigate a new hypothesis, that language input (verbal or signed), in the form of caregivers labelling the objects infants encounter, helps infants parse the world into categories such as cats or cars. This ability to categorize is a game changer for learning, including for vocabulary growth - recognising a new object as a car, a category we are familiar with, means that we can immediately infer what this object is called and that it moves very fast. We put forward an innovative research programme that will provide new understanding of the interaction between early language and conceptual development.1) We will break with classical lab-based category learning paradigms, which have underestimated the importance of language input, to investigate learning in more naturalistic environment. Unlike lab-based studies, where infants learn the category of cats, for example, by seeing various cats one after the other, on uncluttered backgrounds, in their daily lives, minutes, hours or days may pass between encountering different cats; memory decay and interference will make it difficult for infants to see what is common between the members of this category. Taking infants on a real or virtual Learning Trail in the Norwich Castle museum, we will ask whether being told what objects are called acts as a memory cue, helping category learning by reducing memory decay.2) We will develop new methodologies to quantify the category knowledge that children acquire in their daily lives. While a variety of methods exist to measure vocabulary growth, developmental sciences have as yet no means to measure the growth in children's conceptual knowledge. We will use electroencephalography and eye-tracking to chart the growth in category knowledge in the first two years of life, in hearing infants, which will serve as comparison for the study of deaf infants.3) We will provide, for the first time, the critical test for the role language input may have in category learning by measuring category knowledge in the absence of language, in a longitudinal cohort of deaf infants born into hearing families. Using a comprehensive set of measures of early conceptual and communicative development, we will be in a unique position to understand what causes the delays in language and learning in this population. This proposal brings together a unique team of researchers with complementary expertise in overseeing longitudinal cohort studies, brain imaging and early cognitive development in hearing and deaf children with professionals involved in clinical care and education of deaf infants. Working closely with audiologists and teachers for the deaf will ensure that research is driven by the needs of deaf infants and their families and, more importantly, that research findings feed-back into clinical practice (e.g. developing measures of category knowledge to be used as part of clinical assessments of deaf infants), as well as in early education (e.g. revealing alternative, non-linguistic strategies caregivers could use to scaffold infants' conceptual development as part of low burden high impact parent-mediated interventions). Our close collaboration with Norwich Castle Museum Early Years Team will transform the delivery of inclusive museum early education - e.g. by developing ways to engage children with categories rather than isolated exemplars to ensure that learning about historical artefacts generalises beyond the museum's gates.

当出生在听力正常的家庭时，重度聋哑婴儿几乎无法接触到家里使用的语言。人工耳蜗植入现在是最常见的干预途径，然而，尽管早在 9 个月大时就进行了手术，并且植入物的声学效果有所改善，但语言发育迟缓仍然持续到儿童期。重要的是，在植入前接触手语对以后的口语和一般认知发展都有好处，但我们对为什么会出现这种情况知之甚少。我们建议研究一个新的假设，即语言输入（口头或手语）以护理人员标记婴儿遇到的物体的形式帮助婴儿将世界解析为猫或汽车等类别。这种分类能力改变了学习的游戏规则，包括词汇量的增长——将一个新物体识别为汽车，这是我们熟悉的类别，意味着我们可以立即推断出该物体的名称，并且它移动得非常快。我们提出了一项创新的研究计划，将为早期语言和概念发展之间的相互作用提供新的理解。1）我们将打破经典的基于实验室的类别学习范式，这些范式低估了语言输入的重要性，以研究在更自然的环境中的学习。与基于实验室的研究不同，在实验室研究中，婴儿通过在整洁的背景下一只接一只地看到各种猫来了解猫的类别，在日常生活中，在遇到不同的猫之间可能会过去几分钟、几小时或几天；记忆衰退和干扰会使婴儿很难看到这一类别成员之间的共同点。我们将带着婴儿在诺维奇城堡博物馆进行真实或虚拟的学习之旅，询问被告知的物体的名称是否可以作为记忆线索，通过减少记忆衰退来帮助类别学习。2）我们将开发新的方法来量化儿童在日常生活中获得的类别知识。虽然有多种方法可以衡量词汇量的增长，但发展科学尚未有手段来衡量儿童概念性知识的增长。我们将使用脑电图和眼动追踪来绘制听力婴儿出生后头两年类别知识的增长情况，这将作为聋哑婴儿研究的比较。3）我们将首次对出生于听力正常家庭的聋哑婴儿进行纵向队列测量，在没有语言的情况下测量类别知识，从而对语言输入在类别学习中可能发挥的作用进行关键测试。通过使用一套全面的早期概念和交际发展衡量标准，我们将处于独特的地位，可以了解导致该人群语言和学习延迟的原因。该提案汇集了一支独特的研究人员团队，他们在监督听力和聋哑儿童的纵向队列研究、脑成像和早期认知发展方面具有互补的专业知识，并与参与聋哑婴儿临床护理和教育的专业人员一起。与听力学家和聋哑教师密切合作将确保研究是由聋哑婴儿及其家庭的需求驱动的，更重要的是，研究结果可以反馈到临床实践（例如，制定类别知识的测量方法，作为聋哑婴儿临床评估的一部分），以及早期教育（例如，揭示护理人员可以用来支撑婴儿概念发展的替代性非语言策略，作为早期教育的一部分）。 低负担、高影响、家长介导的干预措施）。我们与诺维奇城堡博物馆早期团队的密切合作将改变包容性博物馆早期教育的提供方式 - 例如通过开发方法让孩子们接触类别而不是孤立的范例，以确保对历史文物的了解能够超越博物馆的大门。