A new experimental paradigm to study children’s processing of their parent’s unscripted language input

Abstract

This paper introduces a new experimental paradigm for studying children’s real-time language processing of their parents’ unscripted speech. Focusing on children’s processing of referential expressions, or the phrases that parents used to label particular objects, we engaged dyads in a game in which parents labeled one of several objects displayed on a screen, and the child was to quickly identify it as their eye gaze was tracked. There were two conditions; one included a competitor object (e.g., the target was a striped umbrella and the display also included an umbrella with polka dots), while the other one did not (e.g., only one umbrella was present). The results revealed evidence of children’s incremental processing of their parents’ referential expressions. They also showed faster processing of postnominally-modified as compared to prenominally-modified referential expressions. Parents tended to produce postnominally-modified referential expressions in the more difficult experimental condition in which there was a competitor object, suggesting either that these expressions are also easier for them to produce, or that they accommodate their children by producing more easily processed expressions. We discuss the potential of this paradigm for advancing theories of the relationship between child-directed language input and children’s language processing.

Eyes and ears: Using eye tracking and pupillometry to understand challenges to speech recognition

“…All of these situations can reduce the intelligibility of spoken language. 2016), the interpretation of pronouns, demonstratives, and reflexives (e.g., Arnold, 2001;Arnold et al, 2000;Kaiser et al, 2009;Kaiser and Trueswell, 2008), and children's interpretations of referential expressions in adult input (Arunachalam, 2016). Eye tracking has also been informative for studying the interpretation of prosody (e.g., Kurumada et al, 2014;Dahan et al, 2002;Weber et al, 2006;Watson et al, 2008;Ito and Speer, 2008), the time-course of pragmatic inferences (Breheny et al, 2013;Englehardt et al, 2006;Sedivy et al, 1999;Grodner and Sedivy, 2011;Huang and Snedeker, 2009a, b;Panizza et al, 2009;Grodner et al, 2010;Heller et al, 2008;Wolter et al, 2011;Schwarz, 2014), and the processing of disfluencies in the speech stream (Arnold et al, 2003(Arnold et al, , 2004(Arnold et al, , 2007Bailey and Ferreira, 2007).…”

Adjective forms and functions in British English child-directed speech

“…However, the finer-grained analysis of familiarity suggests that, when adjectives are less familiar, the more helpful postnominal syntactic frame is sometimes deployed. This sensitivity to children's limited processing capacities in specific situations has also been demonstrated in a referential communication task; caregivers were more likely to use adjectives postnominally when the comprehension task was hard than when it was easy (Arunachalam, 2016). In this way, adjective position is in line with other ways that caregivers tailor their language to support language development (e.g., Bornstein, Hendricks, Haynes, & Painter, 2007;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1994;Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Waterfall, Vevea, & Hedges, 2007;Newport, Gleitman, & Gleitman, 1977;Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005;Snow, 1972).…”

“…Knowing the difference between descriptive and contrastive functions is crucial for comprehenders' online sentence processing, particularly when drawing contrastive inferences. To contrastively infer, comprehenders must know that a premodifying adjective is likely to refer to a member of a set rather than to a singleton referenta key process in deriving implicit meaning of utterances (Arunachalam, 2016;Huang & Snedeker, 2013;Sedivy et al, 1999;Sekerina & Trueswell, 2012;Thorpe & Fernald, 2006).…”

“…Historically, researchers have primarily focused on the development of other open word classes such as nouns and verbs (see He & Arunachalam, 2017, for a review). Although more attention has been devoted to adjective processing and development in recent years (e.g., Arunachalam, 2016;Blackwell, 2005;Fernald et al, 2010;Huang & Snedeker, 2013;2000;Murphy & Jones, 2008;Ninio, 2004;Ramscar Yarlett, Dye, Denny, & Thorpe, 2010;Ricks & Alt, 2016;Sandhofer & Smith, 2007;Sekerina & Trueswell, 2012;Syrett, Kennedy, & Lidz, 2010;Thorpe & Fernald, 2006;Tribushinina, 2009Tribushinina, , 2011aTribushinina, , 2011bTribushinina, , 2012Tribushinina, , 2013aTribushinina et al, 2013Tribushinina et al, , 2014Tribushinina & Mak, 2016;Tribushinina, Mak, Dubinkina, & Mak, 2018), more research is needed to further the understanding of how adjectives occur in the input and how their various forms are processed. This is vital for fully understanding the challenges they bring.…”

Differences in the Roles of Parents' and Guardians' Language Use in Rural Left-behind Pupils: Evidence from Hukou County in China

“…This shows that parents' strong claim to the use of Mandarin by guardians and children is an important factor influencing children's language use. Parents have a strong influence on children's language learning and use, whether they are passive (Arunachalam, 2016) or active (Atkinson, 1982) in the learning process. For example, if father or mother does not Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 329 use dialect, the child is required to master the Mandarin to facilitate the communication in the future; another example is that parents work in more decent units and do not want their children to use dialects so as not to be "indigenous".…”