Word learning in 14-month-old monolinguals and bilinguals: Challenges and methodological opportunities

Abstract

Infants can learn words in their daily interactions early in life, and many studies have demonstrated that they can also learn words from brief in-lab exposures. While most studies have included monolingual infants, less is known about bilingual infants’ word learning and the role that language familiarity plays in this ability. In this study we examined word learning in a large sample (up to N = 155) of bilingual and monolingual 14-month-olds using a preferential looking paradigm. To support word learning, novel words were presented within sentence frames in one language (single-language condition) or two languages (dual-language condition). We predicted that infants would exhibit greater word–object learning when they were more familiar with the language of the sentence frame. Using both traditional (t-tests) and updated (linear mixed-effects models) analyses, we found no evidence for successful word learning, nor an effect of familiarity. Our results suggest that word learning in experimental settings can be challenging for 14-month-olds, even when sentence frames are provided. We discuss these results in relation to prior work and suggest how open science practices can contribute to more reliable findings about early word learning.

Keeping track of language: Can monolingual and bilingual infants associate a speaker with the language they speak?

“…For example, infants can learn that some speakers systematically pronounce some words differently and generalize that to new situations (Weatherhead & White, 2016). Moreover, even within the same apparent task, such as word‐object associations, infants succeed in some paradigms (for a review, see Tsui et al, 2019), but not in others (Gonzalez‐Barrero et al, 2021). It may be that speaker‐language associations are relatively difficult to form, or are better formed under other learning circumstances than the one we tested here.…”

Learning through processing: Towards an integrated approach to early word learning

“…The effects of this difference between lab-based exposure and home-based experience are strikingly clear in comparing the ages of children who demonstrate familiar word comprehension vs. novel word learning in the lab. While an increasing number of studies find that infants understand common nouns before 10 months, evidence of robust new word learning from a lab-based exposure is sparse, even in 1-year-olds who show robust comprehension for familiar words (Gonzalez-Barrero et al, 2021;Oviatt, 1980).…”