Social Experience, Social Attention and Word Learning in an Overhearing Paradigm

Abstract

This study explored the relation between children's daily experiences, their attentional behaviors, and their ability to learn words from directed and overheard speech at 20 months of age. Novel objects were presented and labeled in one of two conditions: (a) a Direct condition in which an experimenter addressed the child or (b) an Overhearing condition in which an experimenter addressed a confederate. Children's attentional behaviors during training were coded and parents were asked to describe their children's social experiences outside of the laboratory. In the Direct condition there was no reliable pattern of correlations between experience, attention, and word learning. In the Overhearing condition, word learning positively related to both the amount of time children spent with multiple adults and to the duration of children's attention to the experimenters during training. Furthermore, children's experience around multiple adults positively related to their attention to the experimenters. These findings suggest the possibility that children who have more experience with multiple adults develop attention strategies that enable them to learn words in an overhearing situation.