LEAP workshop

Our last LEAP meeting of the quarter will take place this Friday, 1 March at 11 am in Wieboldt 408 and on Zoom. Yuchen Jin (PhD Student, Comparative Human Development, UChicago) will be giving a talk entitled: When does word learning happen? The contribution of overhearable speech.

Here is the abstract:

When does word learning happen? The contribution of overhearable speech

When does word learning happen? Fruitful research has been done on how children learn words from caregivers’ speech that is directly addressed to them. But little do we know about what happens with overhearable speech which constitutes a considerable proportion of children’s linguistic input – neither its linguistic features nor its impact on child language development. Current research therefore aimed to investigate whether and when overhearable speech contributes to everyday word learning. In study 1, we used “transcripts-informed parental survey” to estimate the frequency distribution of common household object labels. Based on the findings, in study 2, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment to assess whether children of 18, 24 and 30 months old understand words that mostly appear in overhearable speech. I can only share the preliminary results, since the data analysis is still ongoing. I would really love to learn about your suggestions on everything, including data analysis, interpretation, presentation as well as further directions.