Technological timescales: Identifying the impact of digital media on the mechanisms of word learning

项目总结/文摘

Project Summary/Abstract The first two years of a child’s life are marked by an increasing ability to learn new words and an exponential growth in their vocabulary. We also know that the context in which a child learns a new word affects the integration of that word into their lexicon and has cascading effects on language growth over time. However, the last decade has seen a rise in digital media as a source of language input, marking a shift in the contexts in which children encounter and learn words – from rich, three- dimensional, and interactive objects to moments that are less rich, less embodied, and more transient. Little, however, is known about how children map, retain, and generalize words in digital forms or the cascading impact digital media has on vocabulary growth. 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. The results will advance our understanding of language development by a) establishing whether the process of word learning from digital media qualitatively differs from learning with real objects, and b) quantifying how digital contexts alter the cascade by which lexical development supports vocabulary growth. Further, the findings will have implications for predicting long-term language outcomes and forming specific recommendations (or warnings) for educators, clinicians, and parents on when and how young children’s technology exposure impacts word learning during these critical years.