Touch to learn: How sensory cues impact word segmentation and learning

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Infants experience language in a rich multimodal world in which sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and touches occur together. How do these modalities, and their presence in the input, contribute to fundamental aspects of lexical acquisition? We explore how infants exploit multi- compared with unimodal input as they segment wordforms from continuous speech and map meanings to wordforms. We hypothesize that the ability to make use of multimodal information including touch (a fundamental social signal) in the input facilitates infants' language learning by contributing information relevant to the alignment of word boundaries and the association of word meaning to wordforms. In Aim 1 (Experiments 1a-c) we determine whether sensory input that incorporates more modalities aligned with speech input, results in improved segmentation of the speech and improved attention to word edges for infant learners. In Aim 2 (Experiments 2a and 2b) we determine whether sensory input that incorporates more modalities associated with objects results in improved word learning. The proposed research is significant for its clinical and theoretical implications. First, it is clinically significant since exploring the role of multimodal cues on language learning may impact clinical approaches since current language therapies or interventions concerning the input tend to emphasize auditory alone or auditory+visual domains, but not tactile ones. Thus, discoveries concerning the child's use of multimodal information which includes touch in language learning could lead to new avenues for early intervention for infants and toddlers showing delayed language acquisition or who are at-risk of language disorders. Second, this work is theoretically significant since it explores how multimodal information may help the learner at different levels of representation (wordform representations, semantic representations) in ways that could constrain the language learning problem. This supplement provides an opportunity to expand the scope of the grant and increase diversity in the research workforce in three key ways: First, it will provide substantial comprehensive training to an individual who comes from a community of people who continue to be underrepresented in the fields of speech, language, and hearing sciences and psychology. Second, it will train the trainee on ways in which she can mentor more junior students who are also underrepresented in these fields in order to facilitate a pipeline for underrepresented students in health-related fields. Third, it will provide the trainee with opportunities for professional development, research skill development, and opportunities to network with senior faculty who come from historically underrepresented groups and are invested in health equity.