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Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Bergelson, E; Swingley, D
Published in: PloS one
January 2013

Much of what is known about word recognition in toddlers comes from eyetracking studies. Here we show that the speed and facility with which children recognize words, as revealed in such studies, cannot be attributed to a task-specific, closed-set strategy; rather, children's gaze to referents of spoken nouns reflects successful search of the lexicon. Toddlers' spoken word comprehension was examined in the context of pictures that had two possible names (such as a cup of juice which could be called "cup" or "juice") and pictures that had only one likely name for toddlers (such as "apple"), using a visual world eye-tracking task and a picture-labeling task (n = 77, mean age, 21 months). Toddlers were just as fast and accurate in fixating named pictures with two likely names as pictures with one. If toddlers do name pictures to themselves, the name provides no apparent benefit in word recognition, because there is no cost to understanding an alternative lexical construal of the picture. In toddlers, as in adults, spoken words rapidly evoke their referents.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

PloS one

DOI

EISSN

1932-6203

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication Date

January 2013

Volume

8

Issue

8

Start / End Page

e73359

Related Subject Headings

  • Language
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • General Science & Technology
  • Comprehension
 

Citation

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Bergelson, E., & Swingley, D. (2013). Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient. PloS One, 8(8), e73359. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073359
Bergelson, Elika, and Daniel Swingley. “Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient.PloS One 8, no. 8 (January 2013): e73359. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073359.
Bergelson E, Swingley D. Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient. PloS one. 2013 Jan;8(8):e73359.
Bergelson, Elika, and Daniel Swingley. “Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient.PloS One, vol. 8, no. 8, Jan. 2013, p. e73359. Epmc, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073359.
Bergelson E, Swingley D. Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient. PloS one. 2013 Jan;8(8):e73359.

Published In

PloS one

DOI

EISSN

1932-6203

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication Date

January 2013

Volume

8

Issue

8

Start / End Page

e73359

Related Subject Headings

  • Language
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • General Science & Technology
  • Comprehension