Department of Psychology, New York University.
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University.
Dev Psychol. 2022 Mar;58(3):405-416. doi: 10.1037/dev0001285.
Infants learn nouns during object-naming events-moments when caregivers name the object of infants' play (e.g., ball as infant holds a ball). Do caregivers also label the actions of infants' play (e.g., roll as infant rolls a ball)? We investigated connections between mothers' verb inputs and infants' actions. We video-recorded 32 infant-mother dyads for 2 hr at home (13 month olds, n = 16; 18 month olds, n = 16; girls, n = 16; White, n = 23; Asian, n = 2; Black, n = 1; other, n = 1; multiple races, n = 5; Hispanic/Latinx, n = 2). Dyads were predominantly from middle-class to upper middle-class households. We identified each manual verb (e.g., press, shake) and whole-body verb (e.g., kick, go) that mothers directed to infants. We coded whether infants displayed manual and/or whole-body actions during a 6-s window surrounding the verb (i.e., 3 s prior and 3 s after the named verb). Mothers' verbs and infant actions were largely congruent: Whole-body verbs co-occurred with whole-body actions, and manual verbs co-occurred with manual actions. Moreover, half of mothers' verbs corresponded precisely to infants' concurrent action (e.g., infant pressed button as mother said, "Press the button"). In most instances, mothers commented on rather than instigated infants' actions. Findings suggest that verb learning is embodied, such that infants' motor actions offer powerful cues to verb meanings. Furthermore, our approach highlights the value of cross-domain research integrating infants' developing motor and language skills to understand word learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
婴儿在物体命名事件中学习名词，此时照料者会说出婴儿玩耍的物体的名称（例如，当婴儿拿着球时，说出“球”）。照料者是否也会给婴儿玩耍的动作贴上标签（例如，当婴儿滚动球时，说出“滚”）？我们研究了母亲动词输入与婴儿动作之间的联系。我们在家中对 32 个婴儿-母亲对子进行了 2 小时的视频记录（13 个月大的婴儿，n = 16；18 个月大的婴儿，n = 16；女孩，n = 16；白人，n = 23；亚洲人，n = 2；黑人，n = 1；其他，n = 1；多种族，n = 5；西班牙裔/拉丁裔，n = 2）。这些对子主要来自中产阶级到上层中产阶级家庭。我们确定了母亲对婴儿说的每一个手动动词（例如，按压、摇晃）和全身动词（例如，踢、走）。我们对婴儿在动词周围 6 秒的窗口内是否显示手动和/或全身动作进行了编码（即命名动词之前 3 秒和之后 3 秒）。母亲的动词和婴儿的动作大多是一致的：全身动词与全身动作同时出现，手动动词与手动动作同时出现。此外，母亲的一半动词与婴儿同时进行的动作完全相符（例如，当母亲说“按按钮”时，婴儿按下按钮）。在大多数情况下，母亲是在评论而不是引发婴儿的动作。研究结果表明，动词学习是具体的，即婴儿的动作提供了动词意义的有力线索。此外，我们的方法强调了跨领域研究的价值，即将婴儿不断发展的运动和语言技能结合起来，以理解单词学习。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2022 APA，保留所有权利）。
