Which one is a balide? The Effects of Prosody and Animacy on Novel Noun Learning with Children

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2024-05

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The Ohio State University

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Abstract

Prosody is how words are spoken, affecting how messages are conveyed. When prosody is relevant to the meaning, this enhances word learning (e.g., sad prosody with broken toy; Berman et al., 2013). However, it is unknown if children attend to prosody that is irrelevant to the word learning task. Previous research with adults demonstrated across simple/complex and animate/inanimate referents, some irrelevant prosodies decreased word learning, demonstrating adults’ inability to ignore this irrelevant information (Jungers et al., in press; West et al., 2022). The current research examined this effect of irrelevant prosody on children’s novel noun learning. In this study, preschool children (n = 67) were trained on novel labels paired to novel referents (Aliens, Objects, Faces; between-participant) across five prosodic categories (Happy, Fear, Doubt, Name, Warn; within-participant) counterbalanced across participants. Test trials instructed participants to point to the correct referent to measure word learning accuracy. This train-test sequence occurred twice. Then, a Generalization Block determined if children could extend labels to similar items. Results showed that Aliens were learned less accurately than Objects and Faces, while Objects and Faces were learned similarly across the study. Prosody only affected the Object labels, with Happy and Fear prosodies being more accurate than Name. Prosody did not affect learning labels for Aliens or Faces. Results suggest that referent complexity, animacy status, and irrelevant prosody affect children’s noun learning, but in a different way than it affects adults.

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prosody, children, nouns, animacy

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