SCIL · The role of social cues for infant word learning
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-04-01 → 2019-03-31
- EU contribution
- €246,668
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The role of social cues for infant word learning
Babies start knowing the meaning of some words by 6 months of age, and by age two they know hundreds. Many researchers have suggested that social factors are central for this rapid acquisition. The mechanisms through which they support the learning process are, however, still poorly understood. SCIL aims at better understanding these mechanisms, focusing on the role of two salient elements of social interactions: The interactivity and human-likeness of an interaction partner. We study whether babies learn better from an interactive than a non-interactive teacher, and how the teacher’s human-likeness influences this process. Understanding how the social environment shapes language learning is crucial for improving our recommendations for caregivers and educators. SCIL specifically contributes to recommendations pertaining to the role of interactive screen media in language education.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Infants start knowing the meaning of some words by 6 months of age and by age two they know hundreds. The mechanisms behind the word learning processes subtending these feats are still poorly understood. Current accounts of infants’ word learning differ about the degree to which word learning is purely a product of increasingly sophisticated perceptual associations, versus a process in which associative learning is implicated, but the main engine of development is fundamentally social and timed by the infant’s grasp of the referential intentions of others when using language. The present project will explore the mechanisms behind word learning (1) by identifying the elements that lead to a word learning advantage in a social situation, (2) by assessing whether infants infer intention from social cues, or whether the latter merely refocus attention, and (3) by testing how long-term word learning is modulated by social cues in naturalistic situations. By assessing both infants (aged 6-10 months) and toddlers (aged 12-16 months), I will determine whether the mechanisms for word learning change with age. I will be able to characterize the role of social cues in young infants’ and toddlers' word learning for the first time by leveraging the cutting-edge technologies of gaze-contingent eye-tracking and infant-friendly automated toys.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE · ParisCoordinatorFrance
- THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CORP · PhiladelphiaUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union