Effects of input on early word learning

这项研究将结合单词学习测试来考察婴儿定向言语的各个方面。我们将包括家庭录音(研究I)或培训阶段(研究II)，然后进行实验测试以确定学习结果。研究一将探讨(A)单词出现的频率和(B)用法的可变性对单词学习的影响。我们将利用婴儿名字在家庭使用中自然产生的个体差异--关于使用频率和形式的可变性(即，各种名字或昵称)--以及公认的发现，即他们自己的名字是婴儿识别的第一个单词形式。我们将首先安排6个月大婴儿的家庭录音，以便在没有任何观察员的情况下获得自发的输入语音，以确定婴儿名字的使用数量和形式。然后，研究I的实验室测试将呈现给婴儿的目标单词，如自行车或杯子，他们在那个年龄被发现不认识这些单词，作为一小段文字的一部分，其中单词重复地跟随在(A)孩子的名字或(B)接近匹配的备用名字之后。实验的测试部分包括随机交替呈现两个目标单词和两个不熟悉的单词。然后，从与(B)词、与结构匹配的陌生名字和两个陌生的词相比，听(A)词与熟悉的名字组合的听力时间的差异来收集学习结果。我们预计，那些家庭录音包括更多使用他们的名字和/或更少的变体的婴儿，会比其他婴儿表现出更长的时间来倾听段落中与他们的名字结合的单词。其次，我们感兴趣的是确定孤立地听单词是否比听嵌入句子中的单词能带来更好的学习结果。我们将为年满11个月的婴儿的父母提供一本图画书，每个图画的名称要么印成一个单词标签，要么印成一个简短的多单词句子中的最后一个单词，每本书包含六个单词，以每种方式呈现(每个单词为一半的儿童单独呈现，另一半的儿童以句子形式呈现)。家长们将被要求在三周的时间里每天阅读两次这本书，而不会偏离我们提供的措辞。训练期结束后，婴儿将在实验室接受测试。他们中的一半人将接受词汇表的测试，这些词汇表对比(A)孤立训练的单词集，(B)句子训练的单词集，和(C)未训练的单词。另一半婴儿将接受“分段任务”的测试，该任务要求在连续讲话的段落中识别单词，并将三种单词类型的段落进行对比。学习结果将再次通过听力时间来衡量，这里是孤立训练的单词、句子训练的单词和未训练的单词。我们预计，在这两个任务中，与在句末条件下训练的单词(这将因婴儿而异)相比，婴儿对孤立训练的单词表现出更高的优先注意比率，尽管所有任务都表现出对训练的单词比未训练的单词更长的注视。这里研究的问题，对婴儿的言语输入的数量和变异性的意义，以及它被呈现的语境，都是研究输入对语言发展影响的重要问题。初步研究结果显示，在婴儿使用的语言数量和输入言语中孤立词语的使用程度方面存在文化差异(Keren-Portnoy等人，2010年)，结合这些初步结果，拟议的研究可以导致针对幼儿父母的更有效和更坚实的基于研究的干预计划，特别是在父母不经常与婴儿交谈的文化中。

This research will examine aspects of Infant Directed Speech in conjunction with tests of word learning. We will include a home recording (Study I) or training period (Study II), followed by experimental testing to ascertain learning outcomes. Study I will explore the effect on word learning of (a) the frequency of occurrence of a word and (b) variability in usage. We will exploit the naturally occurring individual differences in family uses of infant names - as regards both frequency of use and variability in its forms (i.e., varied names or nicknames) - and of the well established finding that their own names are among the first word forms that infants recognize. We will begin by arranging for the home recording of 6-month-old infants in order to obtain spontaneous input speech, in the absence of any observer, to establish the amount and form of use of the infant's name. The lab test for Study I will then present to infants 'target' words such as bike or cup, which they have been found not to recognize at that age, as part of a short passage in which the word repeatedly follows either (a) the child's name or (b) a closely matched alternate name. The test portion of the experiment will involve presentation of the two target words in random alternation with two unfamiliarised words. The learning outcome is then gleaned from differences in listening time to the (a) word, heard combined with the familiar name, as compared with the (b) word, heard combined with a structurally matched unfamiliar name and the two unfamiliarised words. We expect those infants whose home recording included more uses of their name and/or fewer variants to show longer listening to the words that were combined with their name in the passage than will the remaining infants. Secondly, we are interested in ascertaining whether or not hearing words in isolation leads to better learning outcomes than does hearing them embedded in sentences. We will provide parents of infants who have reached 11 months of age with a picture-book with the names of each image printed either as a one-word label or as the final word in a short multiword sentence, with each book containing six words presented in each way (with each word presented in isolation for half of the children, in sentences for the other half). The parents will be asked to read the book twice a day over a three-week period, without deviating from the wording we provide. After the training period the infants will be tested in the lab. Half of them will be tested with lists of words contrasting (a) the set of words trained in isolation, (b) those trained in sentences, and (c) untrained words. The other half of the infants will be tested on a 'segmentation task', which requires the identification of words in passages of continuous speech, again with passages contrasting the three word types. The learning outcome will again be measured in terms of listening times, here to words trained in isolation and in sentences and to untrained words. We expect that in both tasks infants will show a higher rate of preferential attention to the words trained in isolation in comparison with the words trained in the sentence-final condition (which will differ individually by infant), although all are expected to show longer looking to trained over untrained words. The issues investigated here, the significance of quantity and variability of speech input to infants and of the context in which it is presented, are both important questions in the study of the effects of input on language development. Taken together with preliminary results showing cultural differences in the quantity of language used with infants as well as in the degree of use of isolated words in input speech (Keren-Portnoy et al., 2010), the proposed research can lead to more efficient and more solidly research-based intervention programs with parents of young infants, especially in cultures in which parents do not often speak to their infants.