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，深度失聪的婴儿几乎没有机会接触到他们家里使用的语言。髋关节植入现在是最常见的干预途径，然而，尽管早在9个月大时就提供了手术，植入物的声学效果也有所改善，但语言延迟一直持续到儿童时期。重要的是，在植入前接触手语对以后的口头语言和一般认知发展都有好处，但我们对为什么会这样的理解很少。我们提出了一个新的假设，即语言输入（口头或签署），在形式的照顾者标记的对象婴儿遇到，帮助婴儿解析世界的类别，如猫或汽车。这种分类的能力是学习的一个游戏规则改变者，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这个物体的名称，并且它移动得非常快。我们提出了一个创新的研究计划，将提供早期语言和概念发展之间的相互作用的新的理解。1）我们将打破经典的实验室为基础的类别学习范式，低估了语言输入的重要性，研究在更自然的环境中学习。与实验室研究不同，婴儿通过一个接一个地看到各种猫来学习猫的类别，在他们的日常生活中，在遇到不同的猫之间可能会经过几分钟，几小时或几天;记忆衰退和干扰将使婴儿难以看到这一类别成员之间的共同点。在诺里奇城堡博物馆中，我们将带着婴儿进行真实的或虚拟的学习路径，我们将询问被告知物体的名称是否作为记忆线索，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。虽然存在各种各样的方法来衡量词汇的增长，发展科学还没有手段来衡量儿童的概念知识的增长。我们将使用脑电图和眼动追踪来记录听力正常的婴儿在生命的头两年中类别知识的增长情况，这将作为对失聪婴儿研究的比较。3）我们将首次通过测量没有语言的情况下的类别知识，对语言输入在类别学习中的作用进行关键测试，出生于听力正常家庭的聋儿的纵向队列研究。使用一套全面的早期概念和沟通发展的措施，我们将在一个独特的位置，以了解是什么原因导致语言和学习的延迟在这个人口。该提案汇集了一支独特的研究人员团队，该团队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进行了合作。与听力学家和聋人教师的密切合作将确保研究是由聋人婴儿及其家庭的需求驱动的，更重要的是，研究结果将反馈到临床实践中（例如，制定类别知识的衡量标准，作为失聪婴儿临床评估的一部分），以及早期教育（例如，作为低负担、高影响的父母干预措施的一部分，揭示看护者可以用来支持婴儿概念发展的替代性、非语言策略）。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交付-例如，通过开发方法让儿童参与类别而不是孤立的样本，以确保对历史文物的学习超越博物馆的大门。