Infant attention in the context of language

项目摘要/摘要 众所周知，语言从根本上与人类认知交织在一起。甚至在婴儿之前 理解一个单词的意思，听语言支持认知过程，如规则学习 (Ferguson&Lew-Williams，2016)和类别构成(例如，Balaban&Waxman，1997；Ferry，Hepos&Waxman， 2010；Fulkerson&Waxman，2007)。然而，语言在婴儿期施加这些影响的机制并不是 很好理解。目前的提议的目的是确定潜在的视觉注意机制，可能 语言对认知的影响，跨越两个视觉任务(物体比较和物体分类)， 跨越两个发育时间点(5个月和10个月)，跨越两种语言形式(口语和手语)。 为了了解语言如何影响婴儿的认知过程，拟议中的研究将使用眼球跟踪来 探索视觉指标，如瞳孔放大和注视模式，这些都是以前对视觉感兴趣的 研究人员，但未被语言研究人员探索。这组研究将询问语言是如何组织注意力的，以及 哪些个体在注意力上的差异最能预测学习结果。两个实验范式将是 使用：一种要求婴儿对单独的对象进行编码并检测它们何时发生变化，另一种要求 学习对象类别。每个系列中的研究将首先检查在没有语言的情况下的视觉测量，以及 然后会比较语言线索和非语言线索的影响。最后一项研究将询问观察到的影响 通过测试婴儿对看到手语而不是听到说话的反应，来进行跨语言模式的翻译 语言。 这项研究将促进该领域对语言如何影响婴儿期注意力和认知的理解。 此外，这些研究旨在利用婴儿注意力的个体差异。更清楚地认识到 婴儿期的标准化注意模式将作为确定长期干预措施的跳板。 为有注意力障碍和自闭症风险的婴幼儿提供长期福利。最后，研究婴儿如何分配 他们在看到手语的背景下的注意力将提供急需的基础研究过程， 由于慢性耳部感染而导致先天失聪或听力障碍的儿童的语言发育。 这项研究还将为申请者提供关键的培训，以促进其学术生涯的发展。这包括 婴儿眼球跟踪方法和分析技术的方法论培训，以及 视觉注意过程--她的研究生训练没有包括这一主题。最后，所提出的实验提供了一个明确的 延长了她的研究生研究项目，该项目侧重于非语言交际暗示(手势)如何影响 在孩子们身上学习。通过扩展她的研究重点和获得新的方法技能，她将成长为一名研究人员 并提升她的职业机会。

Project Summary/Abstract It is well established that language is fundamentally interwoven with human cognition. Even before infants understand the meaning of a single word, listening to language supports cognitive processes such as rule learning (Ferguson & Lew-Williams, 2016) and category formation (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997; Ferry, Hepos & Waxman, 2010; Fulkerson & Waxman, 2007). Yet the mechanisms through which language exerts these effects in infancy are not well understood. The aim of the current proposal is to identify the potential visual attentional mechanisms that might underlie the effects of language on cognition, across two visual tasks (object comparison and object categorization), across 2 developmental time points (5 and 10-months), and across two language modalities (spoken and signed language). In order to understand how language affects infant cognitive processes, the proposed studies will use eye-tracking to explore visual indices such as pupil dilation and fixation patterns that have previously been of interest to vision researchers but unexplored by language researchers. This set of studies will ask how language organizes attention, and which individual differences in attention are most predictive of learning outcomes. Two experimental paradigms will be used: one that requires infants to encode individual objects and detect when they have changed, and one that requires learning object categories. Studies within each series will first examine visual measures in the absence of language, and will then compare the influence of language vs. non-linguistic cues. A final study will ask how the observed effects translate across language modality by testing how infants respond to seeing sign language, rather than hearing spoken language. This research will advance the field's understanding of how language affects attention and cognition in infancy. Moreover, the studies are designed to leverage individual differences in infant attention. A clearer understanding of normative attention patterns in the infant years will serve as a springboard for identifying targeted interventions with long- term benefits for infants and young children at risk for attention disorders and ASD. Finally, studying how infants allocate their attention in the context of seeing sign language will provide much needed basic research on the processes that underlie language development in children who are born deaf or hard of hearing due to chronic ear infections. This research will also provide the applicant with critical training to advance her academic career. This includes methodological training in infant eye tracking methodology and analysis techniques, as well as theoretical training in visual attention processes – a topic her graduate training did not include. Finally, the proposed experiments provide a clear extension of her graduate research program which focused on how non-verbal communicative cues (gestures) influence learning in children. By extending her research focus and gaining new methodological skills, she will grow as a researcher and advance her professional opportunities.