Diversity Supplement for the Development of children's language comprehension using ERPs during natural listening

联系PD/PI：Snedeker，Jesse 项目总结 理解口语涉及一系列的过程，使我们能够感知 语音，识别正在说的词，将它们连接在一起以确定 句子的意思，并使用会话上下文来推断信息 演讲者正试图传达。在成年人中，这些过程是相互联系的，以至于感知 较低的水平是由较高水平形成的预期塑造的。例如，我们确定一个 单词不仅基于我们听到的声音(语音输入)，而且还基于 句子的意义，以及它所在的对话。这些高级约束有助于 美国人预计，当句子实时展开时，它将如何继续。这一能力对于 流利的语言理解，但我们刚刚开始了解它是如何发展的，在一定程度上 因为成年人通常使用的范例包括听一长串无关的 没有明确目标的句子。拟议的项目通过以下方式解决这一重大差距 开发适合儿童使用事件相关学习理解的新范式 在自然听力任务中记录的电位(ERP)(ERP是对大脑的测量 活动)。孩子们听一个故事，因为事件相关电位时间锁定，每一个词的开头都被记录下来。 这允许在短时间内在生态有效的情况下收集大量数据 和有趣的任务。建议的实验使用这项任务来研究单词的大脑签名 识别(N400)，用于比较单词识别对属性的依赖程度 单词的可预测性(例如，它的频率)，而不是高级预期(例如， 上下文中的单词)。实验1跟踪这两个约束的使用在5-6之间的变化情况 这些技能与语言能力和识字能力之间的关系。实验2. 调整学龄前儿童的任务，以确定他们是否也使用上下文线索。实验 3探讨上下文在单词识别中的使用如何受到句子中的错误的影响，在 将自然听力任务与严格控制的实验任务相结合的设计 操纵。提案中开发的范例可以应用于各种不同的 在临床人群中难以理解和使用的语言理解问题 学习传统设计。追溯瞬间对瞬间语言的发展 理解是理解儿童如何成为流利的倾听者的核心。这是一个 确定具有以下特征的非典型发展模式的关键第一步 诸如特殊语言障碍、自闭症和阅读障碍等障碍。因为识字建立在 在口语方面，这项工作最终也可能为教育干预提供信息。 第6页 项目摘要/摘要

Contact PD/PI: Snedeker, Jesse PROJECT SUMMARY Understanding spoken language involves a cascade of processes that allow us to perceive speech sounds, identify the words that are being spoken, connect them together to determine the meaning of the sentence, and use the conversational context to infer the message the speaker is trying to convey. In adults, these processes are linked together such that perception at a lower level is shaped by expectations formed at higher levels. For example, we identify a word not only on the basis of the sounds we hear (phonological input) but also based on the meaning of the sentence, and conversation, in which it occurs. These high-level constraints help us anticipate how a sentence will continue as it unfolds in real time. This ability is critical for fluent language comprehension, but we are just beginning to understand how it develops, in part because the paradigms commonly used in adults involve listening to long lists of unrelated sentences with no clear goal in mind. The proposed project addresses this vital gap by developing a new child-friendly paradigm for studying comprehension using event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded during a natural listening task (ERP's are measures of brain activity). Children listen to a story as ERPs time-locked to the onset of every word are recorded. This allows for the collection of a large amount of data in a short time in an ecologically-valid and fun task. The proposed experiments use this task to study a brain signature of word recognition (the N400) to compare the degree to which word recognition depends on properties of the word (e.g., its frequency) as opposed to high-level expectations (e.g., the predictability of the word in context). Exp. 1 tracks how the use of these two constraints changes between 5-6 years of age and adulthood and how these skills relate to language ability and literacy. Exp. 2 adapts the task for preschool-aged children to determine if they also use contextual cues. Exp. 3 explores how the use of context in word identification is affected by errors in the sentence, in a design that combines the natural listening task with a tightly controlled experimental manipulation. The paradigm developed in the proposal could be applied to a wide variety of questions about language comprehension and used in clinical populations that are difficult to study with traditional designs. Tracing the development of moment-to-moment language comprehension is central to understanding how children become fluent listeners. This is an essential first step for identifying the atypical patterns of development that characterize disorders such as specific language impairment, autism, and dyslexia. Because literacy builds on oral language, this work may also ultimately inform educational interventions. Page 6 Project Summary/Abstract