Word Learning and the Spatial Context of Naturalistic Scenes - Project Summary/Abstract Language input to children is replete with environmental regularities that they can use to support word learning. Nevertheless, our understanding of how environmental context affects language acquisition remains limited because of methodological barriers to approximating real-world dynamics in experimental settings and theoretical barriers to describing how non-linguistic contexts support inferences about word meanings. This proposed project takes first steps towards bridging the gap between naturalistic and experimental approaches to word learning by examining how distinct environments can act as rich source of meaning that learners might leverage to generate inferences about novel words. It tests the hypothesis that learners can use conceptual knowledge about what occurs where to help them disambiguate word meanings. For example, a child may not initially know the word for pancake-flipping instrument, but they may notice that the word “spatula” and the object [spatula] both occur where food is prepared, and that the object [spatula] is also used to prepare food. Such conceptual relationships might serve to help learners connect novel words to their referents. The current project uses two experiments to investigate how learners rely on environmental cues differently when learning occurs across different levels of contextualization (e.g., in one location versus many locations), and when it occurs across conceptually distinct environments (e.g., kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom) versus similar environments (e.g., four bedrooms). It is motivated by preliminary work showing that adults are sensitive to environmental information even when it is not the target of learning, as evidenced by better learning when words occur in more constrained contexts. Aim 1 will evaluate how contextualization and the conceptual meaning of different environments affects word learning in children. Aim 2 will evaluate how contextualization and the conceptual meaning of environments affects word learning in adults differently when learning takes place on a two-dimensional screen versus in a three-dimensional virtual reality (VR) setting. By moving beyond mere statistical regularities, this study will 1) reveal the extent to which learners rely on the conceptual meaning of environments to support vocabulary acquisition, and 2) enable a mechanistic account of how information in scenes is integrated across domains for linguistic purposes. If environmental context conveys conceptual meanings from objects and scenes, this opens the door to the possibility that non- linguistic pathways may be responsible for word learning difficulties in children with language disorders. Understanding the role of environmental context may shift treatment towards a more holistic approach focused on the integration of linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge in lieu of a focus only on explicitly linguistic skills. Indeed, establishing how environmental context benefits vocabulary acquisition may improve our ability to optimize physical spaces to support learning for all individuals both at home and in school settings.
