Foundations of Languages - PSYCH 133C

Joint Attention

Mutual attention between infant and caregiver toward the same object or event; foundation for word learning

Age of Joint Attention Development

10-12 months

Pointing

Gesture used to establish or maintain joint attention

Gaze-Following

Infants follow adult gaze to identify referents; crucial for learning object labels

Importance of Joint Attention

Supports mapping words to objects during shared focus situations

Imitation

Copying others' actions and sounds as a key way to learn

Intention Reading

Inferring another's goal or intended action

Meltzoff 1995

18-month-olds imitate intended human actions but not machine actions

Intention Reading in Language

By 24 months, children use intention understanding to infer verb meanings ("Let's twang it")

Infant-Directed Speech (IDS)

Slow, high-pitched, exaggerated speech used with infants; helps them detect word boundaries

Purpose of IDS

Helps infants segment continuous speech and recognize word patterns

Preference for IDS

Infants prefer IDS over adult-directed speech as early as two days old (Cooper & Aslin, 1990)

Reason for IDS Preference

Preference likely due to positive emotional tone ("happy talk") (Singh et al., 2002)

Cultural Variation in IDS

Present in many cultures but not universal; children learn best from the style they experience

Infant-Directed Action (IDA)

Exaggerated, longer pauses, slower movements paired with speech ("motionese"); helps infants focus and learn

Preference for IDA

Infants prefer motionese to adult-directed action because it's more engaging

Input Quantity

Amount of language a child hears; more exposure → larger vocabularies

30 Million Word Gap

Estimated difference in words heard ~ age 3 between high-SES and low-SES families

Input Quality

Refers to vocabulary diversity, sentence complexity, and responsiveness of interaction

Caregiver Responsiveness

Frequent and contingent responses lead to faster language growth

Contingent Comments

When a parent comments on what the child is focused on; improves language outcomes

Goldstein & Schwade 2008

Contingent responses to 9-month-old babbling increased vocalization rate and complexity in 30 minutes

WEIRD

Acronym for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic; describes populations overrepresented in research

Why WEIRD Matters

Findings may not generalize to all cultures; cultural context shapes communication and input styles

Speech Segmentation

Ability to break continuous speech into words; predicts later vocabulary size (Junge et al., 2010)

Role of IDS in Segmentation

IDS prosody and slower rate help infants identify word boundaries

4 Months

At _____ , Infants can match facial movement with specific sounds

10-12 months

At ____, Infants follow gaze & point; this supports mapping words to referents

18 Months

At ~_____, Infants use the speaker's gaze to find the labeled object; don't blind imitate (imitate the intended human action, not machine)

24 months

At ____, children use others' intentions to interpret novel verbs ("Let's go twang it")

Newborn Imitation Ability

Newborns could imitate adult's facial expressions