Watching the infant brain learn words: effects of vocabulary size and experience |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, UK;2. Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK;3. University of California, Davis, USA;4. University of Reading, Whiteknights, P.O. Box 217, UK;1. Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZL, United Kingdom;2. Department of Particle Physics, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot 76100, Israel;1. Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Bandeirantes 3900, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil;2. School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK;1. Department of Computer Science Electrical and Space Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87 Luleå, Sweden;2. Independent Researcher, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;3. Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia;4. Media and Communication School, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;1. Université de Toulouse, Université Paul Sabatier, Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Toulouse, France;2. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Toulouse, France;1. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, The Netherlands;2. School of Psychology, Liverpool University, United Kingdom |
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| Abstract: | Previous investigations comparing auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) to words whose meanings infants did or did not comprehend, found bilateral differences in brain activity to known versus unknown words in 13-month-old infants, in contrast with unilateral, left hemisphere, differences in activity in 20-month-old infants. We explore two alternative explanations for these findings. Changes in hemispheric specialization may result from a qualitative shift in the way infants process known words between 13 and 20 months. Alternatively, hemispheric specialization may arise from increased familiarity with the individual words tested. We contrasted these two explanations by measuring ERPs from 20-month-old infants with high and low production scores, for novel words they had just learned. A bilateral distribution of ERP differences was observed in both groups of infants, though the difference was larger in the left hemisphere for the high producers. These findings suggest that word familiarity is an important factor in determining the distribution of brain regions involved in word learning. An emerging left hemispheric specialization may reflect increased efficiency in the manner in which infants process familiar and novel words. |
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