Naming names: How, and how early, does object naming influence infants' fundamental object representations?

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Language is unique to our species, giving us exceptional conceptual flexibility and having powerful downstream consequences for how we learn and reason. This project advances research on early language acquisition, cognitive development, and the link between them, focusing on how infants acquire this uniquely human language-cognition link in the first place and how this link fuels infants’ ability to learn about objects and their names. The outcomes may help to identify very young infants at risk for language delay or impairment, and to design interventions to advance their language and cognitive development. The project also has a strong training mission and deepens partnerships with families, trainees and staff. Recent research reveals that the language-cognition link may be in place early enough to guide infant development, even before infants have begun to talk. For example, by 12 months, even before infants say more than a few words, naming a group of objects (e.g., a dog, a horse, a duck) with the same, consistently-applied name focuses infants’ attention on what is common about them and supports object categorization (animal). But providing a different name for each of those same objects has a very different effect, focusing infants’ attention on what is different about them and supporting their representation of each as a unique individual. The first aim of this project is to discover whether infants as young as 7 months can establish the tight link between how an object is named and how they represent it. To address this developmental question, the study tests the effect of naming objects on infants’ representation and memory of those objects. The second aim is to discover whether infants’ early representations of objects are strong enough to help them reason about objects in the real world. To address this representational question, the study tests infants’ memory and representation of objects when they move around, hiding and reappearing in dynamic events. The third aim is to answer questions about stability and change over development. To do so, the study combines all data from all infants who participated in the study and examines whether infants’ language-cognition link at 9 months and 12 months of age is related to their vocabulary growth across the first eighteen months. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.