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Children’s ability to use higher-order thinking and learn complex, higher-order concepts is crucial for academic and later employment success. One form of higher-order thinking is transfer, which occurs when learning in one context affects learning in another. Many science concepts require higher-order thinking and relational reasoning so understanding transfer in this domain is particularly valuable in understanding how children learn these concepts. The present studies consider how children’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) podcasts, digital audio programs that aim to engage children with STEM topics, and parent-child conversation while listening to podcasts support children’s learning and transfer. Children’s podcasts are a unique unimodal modality because they include features like conversation, description, and sound effects to encourage audio engagement. However, not much is known about how children learn from podcasts and the factors that could facilitate children’s transfer of science concepts presented in podcasts. Study 1 examined whether children learn from podcasts, and if supporting visual information affected their learning. Participants were 69 children between 7- and 8-years-old who listened (or listened and viewed related images) to an 11-minute science podcast about the water cycle and answered recall and transfer questions. Results from this study revealed no effect of modality on children’s learning, and children in both audio and audiovisual conditions performed above chance on transfer questions. Using a semantic textual similarity analysis, we showed that children in the audiovisual condition did not incorporate visual information in their description of concepts. These results highlight the value of podcasts as a unimodal context that could benefit higher-order concept learning. Study 2 investigated the effect of parent-child conversation while listening to a podcast on children’s learning and transfer. Participants w

Understanding abstract relations is a crucial aspect of human cognition. This thesis explores how children learn to reason about semantic relations, such as antonyms and synonyms, and the factors that enhance their ability to use these relations for analogical reasoning (e.g., understanding that big:small hold the same relation as clean:dirty). Chapter I investigates the early stages of how young children generate antonyms, identifies patterns in their responses across different parts of speech, and compares their abilities to those of relational and natural language models. Chapters II and III focus on how both children and models utilize antonyms to solve verbal analogies, and how relational language cues and semantic distance affect this skill. This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the development of antonymy understanding and identifies key factors that can enhance the ability of both children and models to solve verbal analogies.

The Event Segmentation Theory suggests that people naturally divide everyday experiences into distinct units, with event boundaries serving as anchors in long-term memory and aiding recall. These boundaries are ubiquitous in children's daily experiences and may significantly influence learning. This study investigated how event boundaries affect novel category learning in young children. Specifically, 23 English-speaking three-year-olds learned novel object categories under two conditions. In the event boundary condition, objects were moved across two different background contexts, whereas in the control condition, they remained within the same backgrounds. We hypothesized that presenting objects across an event boundary would enhance generalization. Unexpectedly, both conditions yielded similar performance. An order effect emerged, with initially introduced categories showing better performance, suggesting the impact of task structure and children's differing interpretations of event boundaries, particularly among females. This finding opens avenues for further investigation into the role of event boundaries in early category learning.

Podcasts are unique forms of unimodal modality because they include features like conversation, description, and sound effects to encourage audio engagement. Research shows that learners benefit from learning in two modalities (audio + visual) when information is complementary, not redundant. However, these previous studies used audio narration of text as auditory stimuli which differs from podcast formats. Do children learn from podcasts, and does providing supporting visual information affect learning? Children listened (or listened and viewed related images) to an 11-minute science podcast and answered recall and transfer questions. There was no effect of modality on children's learning, and children in both conditions performed above chance on transfer questions. Using a semantic textual similarity analysis, we show that children in the audiovisual condition do not incorporate visual information in their description of concepts. These results highlight the uniqueness of podcasts as a unimodal context that could benefit higher-order concept learning.

This paper introduces A Library for Innovative Category Exemplars (ALICE) database, a resource that enhances research efficiency in cognitive and developmental studies by providing printable 3D objects representing 30 novel categories. Our research consists of three experiments to validate the novelty and complexity of the objects in ALICE. Experiment 1 assessed the novelty of objects through adult participants' subjective familiarity ratings and agreement on object naming and descriptions. The results confirm the general novelty of the objects. Experiment 2 employed multidimensional scaling (MDS) to analyze perceived similarities between objects, revealing a three-dimensional structure based solely on shape, indicative of their complexity. Experiment 3 used two clustering techniques to categorize objects: k-means clustering for creating nonoverlapping global categories, and hierarchical clustering for allowing global categories that overlap and have a hierarchical structure. Through stability tests, we verified the robustness of each clustering method and observed a moderate to good consensus between them, affirming the strength of our dual approach in effectively and accurately delineating meaningful object categories. By offering easy access to customizable novel stimuli, ALICE provides a practical solution to the challenges of creating novel physical objects for experimental purposes.

Research has demonstrated that learning two or more languages during development (i.e., becoming bilingual) shapes children's cognition in myriad ways. However, because such studies have largely been conducted using laboratory experiments, it is unclear how bilingualism may modulate more naturalistic cognitive skills such as arithmetic fluency. Moreover, how the relationship between speaking two (or more) languages and arithmetic varies with language fluency-specifically, the degree of bilingualism-has been understudied. Therefore, this study examined third- to fifth-grade monolingual (n = 70) and bilingual (n = 51) children's performance on an arithmetic fluency task. Monolinguals' and bilinguals' performance on the arithmetic fluency task did not differ. However, individual differences in the relation between children's arithmetic fluency and their language fluency were found, suggesting that bilingual children's skill in their nondominant language was associated with arithmetic fluency. These findings point to the importance of examining individual differences in language fluency among bilinguals to understand how bilingualism may shape cognitive skills.

Emotion words help children to learn about emotions, yet the mechanism behind this remains unclear. These words may be helpful to children because they are novel, but this emotion learning may also be driven by familiarity. To address this, we conducted a pre-test post-test examination of emotion learning (matching faces to scenarios) with 3-year-olds (N=72). Between pre- and post-test, children either heard explicit emotion labels (“she feels annoyed”), novel labels (“she feels wuggy”), or irrelevant information (“she sits down”). Results revealed that children’s change score (post-test – pre-test) significantly differed by condition (F(2,69)=4.51, p=.014). The most positive change occurred in the explicit label condition (M=0.96, SD=1.57) followed by novel labels (M=0.08, SD=1.69) and irrelevant information (M=-0.38, SD=1.41). Children learned when provided with explicit emotion labels, but not novel labels. This suggests that familiarity (e.g., from previous experience), and not novelty, may best explain how emotion words influence children’s learning about emotions.

Research suggests that perspective-taking in children is associated with greater cognitive and emotion understanding as well as parent use of mental state language—words concerning inner mental states or feelings. However, prior research shows conflicting results on which categories of mental state language—cognition (e.g., think, know), emotion (e.g., happy), or desire (e.g., want)—facilitate children’s perspective-taking. The current study examines the relationship between parent mental state language and children’s perspective-taking. We are coding parent mental state language categories from a wordless book task with two-year-old children and assessing children’s perspective-taking using a card task (Flavell et al., 1981). Preliminary results (N=19, planned 41) show that, on average, parents use more cognition words per session than desire words and, on average, children score at chance on the perspective-taking task. Differences between mental state categories on children’s perspective-taking skills as well as individual variability will be analyzed.

Shared book reading with preschoolers has been linked to lasting, positive effects on children’s vocabulary development. However, some evidence shows children quickly forget target words learned from books, which suggests these words may need extra memory supports. The current studies examined two memory supports that could help word learning: variability and presentation timing. Study 1 examined the effect of question variability by showing 4-year-olds novel words accompanied by irrelevant questions (control), the same questions (no variability), or different questions (variability) each time the target word was presented. Study 2 examined the effect of presentation timing by presenting 4-year-olds with novel words either massed or spaced in time. Children’s memory of the novel target words was tested in one of three delays: 0 minutes, 5 minutes, or 24 hours. Ultimately, these studies inform word learning theories and help improve the quality of shared book reading sessions between caregivers and children.

Understanding abstract relations, and reasoning about various instantiations of the same relation, is an important marker in human cognition. Here we focus on development of understanding for the concept of antonymy. We examined whether four- and five-year-olds (N= 67) are able to complete an analogy task involving antonyms, whether language cues facilitate children’s ability to reason about the antonym relation, and how their performance compares with that of two vector-based computational models. We found that explicit relation labels in the form of a relation phrase (“opposites”) improved performance on the task for five-year-olds but not four-year-olds. Five-year-old (but not four-year-old) children were more accurate for adjective and verb antonyms than for noun antonyms. Two computational models showed substantial variability in performance across different lexical classes, and in some cases fell short of children’s accuracy levels. These results suggest that young children acquire a solid understanding of the abstract relation of opposites, and can generalize it to various instantiations across different lexical classes. These developmental results challenge relation models based on vector semantics, and highlight the importance of examining performance across different parts of speech.

Shared book reading, reading sessions between adults and young children, leads to better general vocabulary development. However, studies show that preliterate children, although able to remember words from books immediately, do not retain most of the book-specific words they learn. Thus, words learned from books may require additional memory supports to be retained after a delay. The current dissertation integrates memory, word learning, and book reading research to characterize both the variability and presentation timing of words within shared book reading sessions and examines how these factors lead to increased retention of words learned from books. First, this dissertation determines how variability in the questions asked during shared book reading affects the retention of novel words. Specifically, in Study 1, 38 4-year-olds were read books with words that were accompanied by irrelevant questions, the same questions, or different questions each time the word was presented. Next, I examined how two different presentation timing styles affect the retention of novel words. In Study 2, 39 4-year-olds were read books with words presented either sequentially or spaced in time. Children in both studies were tested at three different time delays (i.e., immediate, 5 minutes, and 24 hours) to determine how many words were retained in memory. This dissertation found, broadly, that neither variability nor presentation timing led to better word retention across the three different time delays. However, children in this study remembered more words than previous studies even when tested after 24 hours. Implications of these preliminary findings are discussed. Ultimately, these results inform word learning theories and serve to create materials for design-based interventions aimed to improve the quality of shared book reading sessions between caregivers and children.

Shared book reading, reading sessions between adults and young children, leads to better general vocabulary development. However, studies show that preliterate children, although able to remember words from books immediately, do not retain most of the book-specific words they learn. Thus, words learned from books may require additional memory supports to be retained after a delay. The current dissertation integrates memory, word learning, and book reading research to characterize both the variability and presentation timing of words within shared book reading sessions and examines how these factors lead to increased retention of words learned from books. First, this dissertation determines how variability in the questions asked during shared book reading affects the retention of novel words. Specifically, in Study 1, 38 4-year-olds were read books with words that were accompanied by irrelevant questions, the same questions, or different questions each time the word was presented. Next, I examined how two different presentation timing styles affect the retention of novel words. In Study 2, 39 4-year-olds were read books with words presented either sequentially or spaced in time. Children in both studies were tested at three different time delays (i.e., immediate, 5 minutes, and 24 hours) to determine how many words were retained in memory. This dissertation found, broadly, that neither variability nor presentation timing led to better word retention across the three different time delays. However, children in this study remembered more words than previous studies even when tested after 24 hours. Implications of these preliminary findings are discussed. Ultimately, these results inform word learning theories and serve to create materials for design-based interventions aimed to improve the quality of shared book reading sessions between caregivers and children.

Shared book reading with preschoolers has been linked to lasting, positive effects on children’s vocabulary development. However, some evidence shows children quickly forget target words learned from books, which suggests these words may need extra memory supports. The current studies examined two memory supports that could help word learning: variability and presentation timing. Study 1 examined the effect of question variability by showing 4-year-olds novel words accompanied by irrelevant questions (control), the same questions (no variability), or different questions (variability) each time the target word was presented. Study 2 examined the effect of presentation timing by presenting 4-year-olds with novel words either massed or spaced in time. Children’s memory of the novel target words was tested in one of three delays: 0 minutes, 5 minutes, or 24 hours. Ultimately, these studies inform word learning theories and help improve the quality of shared book reading sessions between caregivers and children.

Understanding abstract relations, and reasoning about various instantiations of the same relation, is an important marker in human cognition. Here we focus on development of understanding for the concept of antonymy. We examined whether four- and five-year-olds (N= 67) are able to complete an analogy task involving antonyms, whether language cues facilitate children’s ability to reason about the antonym relation, and how their performance compares with that of two vector-based computational models. We found that explicit relation labels in the form of a relation phrase (“opposites”) improved performance on the task for five-year-olds but not four-year-olds. Five-year-old (but not four-year-old) children were more accurate for adjective and verb antonyms than for noun antonyms. Two computational models showed substantial variability in performance across different lexical classes, and in some cases fell short of children’s accuracy levels. These results suggest that young children acquire a solid understanding of the abstract relation of opposites, and can generalize it to various instantiations across different lexical classes. These developmental results challenge relation models based on vector semantics, and highlight the importance of examining performance across different parts of speech.

Children learn what words mean from hearing words used across a variety of contexts. Understanding how different contextual distributions relate to the words young children say is critical because context robustly affects basic learning and memory processes. This study examined children's everyday experiences using naturalistic video recordings to examine two contextual factors-where words are spoken and who speaks the words-through analyzing the nouns in language input and children's own language productions. The families in the study (n = 8) were two-parent, dual-income, middle-class families with a child between 1 year, 3 months to 4 years, 4 months (age M = 3 years, 5 months) and at least one additional sibling. The families were filmed as they interacted in their homes and communities over 2 weekdays and 2 weekend days. From these videos, we identified when the focal child was exposed to language input and randomly selected 9 hr of contiguous speech segments per family to obtain 6,129 noun types and 30,257 noun tokens in language input and 1,072 noun types and 5,360 noun tokens in children's speech. We examined whether the words that children heard in more variable spatial and speaker contexts were produced with greater frequency by children. The results suggest that both the number of places and the number of speakers that characterized a child's exposure to a noun were positively associated with the child's production of that noun, independent of how frequently the word was spoken. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Recent theories have suggested that emotion words may facilitate the development of emotion concepts. The present study investigates whether emotion words affect children's performance on an emotion category learning task. Across two experiments, 72 three-year-old children (49 female) were asked to identify which emotional face best matched particular emotional scenarios during nine pretest and nine posttest trials. The scenarios in the present studies aligned with emotions typically learned among older age groups (annoyed, disgusted, and nervous). Between pretest and posttest, children participated in training in which a facial configuration (annoyed, disgusted, or nervous) was paired with an associated scenario while they heard the emotion labeled explicitly or heard irrelevant information (Experiment 1) or heard a broad emotion label versus irrelevant information (Experiment 2). Aside from the labels presented, all other information was kept the same across conditions, including the specific faces and scenarios heard during learning trials. In Experiment 1, children's emotion understanding increased more from pretest to posttest in the explicit label versus irrelevant condition, t(34) = 2.26, p = .030, d = .75, but in Experiment 2 the broad emotion labels did not provide an advantage over irrelevant information, t(34) = .72, p = .474, d = .24. These results suggest that emotion labels may be particularly helpful for young children learning about unfamiliar emotions, because specific labels may help children to aggregate disparate emotional information into meaningful categories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The present paper examines a type of abstract domain-general knowledge required for the process of constructing useable domain-specific causal knowledge, the evident goal of causal learning. It tests the hypothesis that analytic knowledge of causal-invariance decomposition functions is essential for this process. Such knowledge specifies the decomposition of an observed outcome into contributions from constituent causes under the default assumption that the empirical knowledge acquired is invariant across contextual/background causes. The paper reports two psychological experiments (and replication studies) with pre-school-age children on generalization across contexts involving binary cause and effect variables. The critical role of causal invariance for constructing useable causal knowledge predicts that even young children should (tacitly) use the causal-invariance decomposition function for such variables rather than a non-causal-invariance decomposition function common in statistical practice in research involving binary outcomes. The findings support the rational shaping of empirical causal knowledge by the causal-invariance constraint, ruling out alternative explanations in terms of non-causal-invariance decomposition functions, heuristics, and biases. For the same causal structure involving candidate causes and outcomes that are binary variables with a "present" value and an "absent" value, the paper argues against the possibility of multiple rational characterizations of the "sameness of causal influence" that justifies generalization across contexts.

Although linguistic and nonlinguistic cues help young children infer meaning when presented with unfamiliar words, little is known about how syntactic information and early bilingual experience shape word learning. This study examined how monolingual and bilingual 24- to 30-month-olds' disambiguation of novel words during a mutual exclusivity task differs as a function of syntactic cues, age, and productive vocabulary. English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals were presented with familiar and novel objects within a syntactic context (e.g., "Give me the blick!") or in isolation (e.g., "Blick!"). Results showed that monolinguals and bilinguals adhered to mutual exclusivity more often when provided with syntactic cues than when those cues were absent. Furthermore, bilinguals' mutually exclusive disambiguation of novel words increased with age, but only when syntactic cues were available. These results provide insight into factors that influence children's disambiguation of novel words. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Not all categories are made the same. Some categories have high within-category variability (e.g., “vehicles” can look very different) and some have low within-category variability (e.g., “apples” are pretty similar). Categories can also vary on their between-category variability where some categories are very similar to each other (e.g., “apples” and “oranges”) and some are very different (e.g., “apples” and “vehicles”). Studies have found that categories with high within and between variability are learned best in massed formats, and categories with low within and between variability are learned best in interleaved formats. However, the unique contribution of each of these kinds of variability (i.e., within and between) have not been studied independently. These studies investigate the unique contribution of within- and between-category variability to 3-year-old children’s word learning in interleaved and massed presentations. The results inform existing understanding of interleaving in word learning and how category variability impacts learning.

Recent theories suggest that emotion words may facilitate the development of emotion concepts. However, most research investigating this relation in early childhood has been correlational. To assess whether emotion words causally influence emotion concept development, we conducted a pre-test post-test study examining which facial configurations 3-year-olds associate with complex emotional scenarios (annoyed, disgusted, and nervous). Between pre- and post-test, children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Children observed a facial configuration paired with a scenario while presented with either an explicit emotion label, a vague emotion label, or irrelevant information. Data from 54 children (36 female, mean age= 3.53) revealed that children’s average change in number of correct responses from pre-test to post-test by condition were as follows: Explicit=1.00 (SD=1.68); Vague=0.11 (SD=1.45); Irrelevant=-0.28, (SD=1.71). These results hold implications for how specific emotion words may casually influence children’s ability to learn new emotion concepts.

Children can learn words through overhearing (i.e., without being directly addressed, Akhtar et al., 2001). Although research shows that children attend to experimenters when new information is presented in an overheard context (Akhtar, 2005), the role attention plays in retention is understudied. In prior studies, spacing of presentations in time facilitates an effortful retrieval process that strengthens long-term retention of the newly learned word (Vlach et al., 2012). The current study examined whether monolingual children retain novel labels for novel shape categories in an overhearing context and the role that attention plays in successful retention. Preliminary results (N = 17) suggest that children regardless of chance performance in the task are showing less attention duration when objects are presented spaced out in time rather than presented in mass succession. This study has implications for how children learn from indirect input and the role attention plays in this unique learning environment.

Research shows that there is a strong cultural bias against women: Many people believe that women are less intellectually talented than men (Kirkcaldy et al., 2007; Upson & Friedman, 2012), and these beliefs emerge in childhood. For example, girls as young as six were less motivated than boys to pursue gender-neutral activities that were described as being for children who are “really smart” and more inclined toward activities intended for “hardworking” children (Bian, Cimpian, & Leslie, 2015). This study investigates whether framing activities as stereotypically masculine or feminine alters the impact of messages about intellectual ability on 6- and 7-year-olds’ selection of preferred activities. Preliminary findings (N=75) indicate that making activities stereotypically feminine reduces girls’ preference for "hardworking" over "smart" games. Such results suggest that presenting young girls with toys that are targeted specifically to them might counteract the effects of negative gender stereotypes about intelligence.

Recent theories suggest that emotion words may facilitate the development of emotion concepts. However, most research investigating this relation in early childhood has been correlational. To assess whether emotion words causally influence emotion concept development, we conducted a pre-test post-test study examining which facial configurations 3-year-olds associate with complex emotional scenarios (annoyed, disgusted, and nervous). Between pre- and post-test, children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Children observed a facial configuration paired with a scenario while presented with either an explicit emotion label, a vague emotion label, or irrelevant information. Data from 54 children (36 female, mean age= 3.53) revealed that children’s average change in number of correct responses from pre-test to post-test by condition were as follows: Explicit=1.00 (SD=1.68); Vague=0.11 (SD=1.45); Irrelevant=-0.28, (SD=1.71). These results hold implications for how specific emotion words may casually influence children’s ability to learn new emotion concepts.

Children can learn words through overhearing (i.e., without being directly addressed, Akhtar et al., 2001). Although research shows that children attend to experimenters when new information is presented in an overheard context (Akhtar, 2005), the role attention plays in retention is understudied. In prior studies, spacing of presentations in time facilitates an effortful retrieval process that strengthens long-term retention of the newly learned word (Vlach et al., 2012). The current study examined whether monolingual children retain novel labels for novel shape categories in an overhearing context and the role that attention plays in successful retention. Preliminary results (N = 17) suggest that children regardless of chance performance in the task are showing less attention duration when objects are presented spaced out in time rather than presented in mass succession. This study has implications for how children learn from indirect input and the role attention plays in this unique learning environment.

Not all categories are made the same. Some categories have high within-category variability (e.g., “vehicles” can look very different) and some have low within-category variability (e.g., “apples” are pretty similar). Categories can also vary on their between-category variability where some categories are very similar to each other (e.g., “apples” and “oranges”) and some are very different (e.g., “apples” and “vehicles”). Studies have found that categories with high within and between variability are learned best in massed formats, and categories with low within and between variability are learned best in interleaved formats. However, the unique contribution of each of these kinds of variability (i.e., within and between) have not been studied independently. These studies investigate the unique contribution of within- and between-category variability to 3-year-old children’s word learning in interleaved and massed presentations. The results inform existing understanding of interleaving in word learning and how category variability impacts learning.

Research shows that there is a strong cultural bias against women: Many people believe that women are less intellectually talented than men (Kirkcaldy et al., 2007; Upson & Friedman, 2012), and these beliefs emerge in childhood. For example, girls as young as six were less motivated than boys to pursue gender-neutral activities that were described as being for children who are “really smart” and more inclined toward activities intended for “hardworking” children (Bian, Cimpian, & Leslie, 2015). This study investigates whether framing activities as stereotypically masculine or feminine alters the impact of messages about intellectual ability on 6- and 7-year-olds’ selection of preferred activities. Preliminary findings (N=75) indicate that making activities stereotypically feminine reduces girls’ preference for "hardworking" over "smart" games. Such results suggest that presenting young girls with toys that are targeted specifically to them might counteract the effects of negative gender stereotypes about intelligence.

Word learning is a crucial aspect of early social and cognitive development, and previous research indicates that children's word learning is influenced by the context in which the word is spoken. However, the role of emotions as contextual cues to word learning remains less clear. The present study investigated word learning among 2.5-year-old children in angry, happy, sad, and variable emotional contexts. Fifty-six children (30 female; Mean age=2.49 years) participated in a novel noun generalization task in which children observed an experimenter labeling objects in either a consistently angry, consistently happy, consistently sad, or variable (one exemplar per emotion) context. Children were then asked to identify the label-object association. Results revealed that children's performance was above chance levels for all four conditions (all t's>3.68, all p's<.01), but performance did not significantly differ by condition (F(3,52)=0.51, p=.677). These results provide valuable information regarding potential boundaries for when contextual information may versus may not influence children's word learning.

A large body of research indicates that children can map words to categories and generalize the label to new instances of the category after hearing a single instance of the category labeled. Additional research demonstrates that word learning is enhanced when children are presented with multiple instances of a category through comparison or contrast. In this study, 3-year-old children participated in a novel noun generalization task in which a label was given for either (a) a single instance of a category, (b) multiple instances of a category, or (c) contrasting a category instance with non-category members. Children were asked to extend the label to a new category at test either immediately (Study 1) or after a 10-s delay (Study 2). The results indicate that when tested immediately, children who heard a single instance labeled outperformed children who were presented with multiple instances. However, when tested after a brief delay, there was no difference among the conditions.

Prior research indicates that the physical context in which a word is spoken can influence how well young children learnthe word. Yet, it is unclear how variability in social contexts (e.g. emotion) may impact word learning. To assess this,the present study used a novel noun generalization task with 2-year-old children. Participants were randomly assigned toone of four emotional labeling conditions: consistently angry, consistently happy, consistently sad, or variable (one labelin each emotional tone per trial). We investigated whether the number of correct responses out of eight trials varied byemotional condition. Preliminary data from 28 (14 female) participants suggests that the percentage of correct responsesin the sad (59.4%) and happy (64.3%) conditions may be lower than in the angry (70.8%) or variable (69.6%) conditions.These results hold implications for how emotional contexts may influence childrens ability to learn new words.

Sometimes parents use comparison in speech to children and sometimes they do not. Comparison has been shown to havemultiple benefits for learning. This study investigates what types of situations afford and engender parent comparison talkto 12 children 20 to 24 months of age in a free form picture book context. Each page contained three pictures that variedon color and/or object. Parent speech was analyzed for color, object, question/statement use, and comparison/contrast use.Childrens color comprehension and MCDI score were also measured. The results indicated a quadratic relationship whereparents used comparison and contrast more often when their children knew few or many color words. Parents also usedcomparison more when the page had one dimension held constant across pictures. The results of this study inform existingunderstanding of comparison and demonstrate how this speech correlates with childrens understanding of language, andspecifically color words.

Language has the power to shape the way people organize their thoughts and concepts. Some concepts, like spatialwords, are categorized differently cross-linguistically. Conflicting language-to-concept mappings, such as the Spanishen translating to both in and on, may pose difficulty to Spanish speakers learning English. This study investigated howcontextual cues can help children learn prepositions. Three-year-olds were read preposition books that were arranged inone of two conditions: separation or control. The separation condition had each instance of in appear in one visual context(e.g., Bear put the apple in the box, blue page) and each instance of on appear in a separate context (e.g., Penguin put theball on the grass, green page). The control condition eliminated the contextual cues by presenting instances of in and onin both contexts. This study informs our understanding of strategies to improve the learning of spatial words in everydayadult-child interactions.

Number-related language input has been shown to influence children's number word acquisition and mathematical ability. Significant differences exist between how Mandarin Chinese speaking parents and monolingual English-speaking parents use numeric language in speech to children. In particular, Mandarin Chinese speaking parents use cardinal number much more frequently in speech to children than do English speaking parents. However, because previous studies have been conducted cross-nationally, research has been unable to disentangle the influences of language from parental influence. The current study examined numeric language input to preschool children with bilingual Mandarin-English American parents. Results show that when parents speak to their children in Mandarin Chinese, children hear more instances and examples of the cardinal number principle than when parents speak to their children in English. This suggests that differences between how the Mandarin Chinese and English languages are structured leads to disparities in how frequently children hear cardinal number in everyday speech.

Number-related language input has been shown to influence children's number word acquisition and mathematical ability. Significant differences exist between how Mandarin Chinese speaking parents and monolingual English-speaking parents use numeric language in speech to children. In particular, Mandarin Chinese speaking parents use cardinal number much more frequently in speech to children than do English speaking parents. However, because previous studies have been conducted cross-nationally, research has been unable to disentangle the influences of language from parental influence. The current study examined numeric language input to preschool children with bilingual Mandarin-English American parents. Results show that when parents speak to their children in Mandarin Chinese, children hear more instances and examples of the cardinal number principle than when parents speak to their children in English. This suggests that differences between how the Mandarin Chinese and English languages are structured leads to disparities in how frequently children hear cardinal number in everyday speech.

The context you learn in influences how you recall information. When there are multiple competing sources of informationto be recalled, context dependency may help activate information that is hard to retrieve. This study examines its effects onlearning shape and texture categories signaled by redundant correlated contextual cues. Three-year-olds learned shape andtexture in two conditions: a contextual separation condition and a contextual overlap condition. Children in the separationcondition learned shape in one context and learned texture in a second context. Children in the overlap condition learnedboth shape and texture on both contexts. After training, children were asked to find a texture match to test if they could shifttheir attention away from shape. Children in the separation condition chose the texture match more often than children inthe overlap condition, suggesting a benefit of using contextual cues to shift dominant biases.

Compared to monolinguals, bilingual children attend more to pragmatic cues, especially when they conflict with perceptualcues (Brojde et al., 2012). This longitudinal eye-tracking study investigated monolingual and bilingual two-year-olds (T1M age=24.3 months; T2 M age=27.6 months) visual attention in a word learning paradigm containing a conflict betweeneye gaze (pragmatic cue) and object salience (perceptual cue). Participants saw videos of a model looked looking at andlabeling either a salient or a nonsalient object. Next, participants saw the objects from the videos side-by-side onscreen, andheard either the target label or a novel distracter label. At T1, monolinguals (N=14) and bilinguals (N=10) showed similarlooking patterns during learning; at test, bilinguals modulated their looking to target and distracter objects differently thanmonolinguals. At T2, monolinguals and bilinguals showed similar looking patterns during all trials. These results suggestthat language background may differentially influence word learning and visual attention across development.

Multiple studies demonstrate benefits of comparison and contrast for learning relational, taxonomic, and abstract cate-gories. This study examined the effects of comparison and contrast with learning non-relational perceptual information,specifically on 3-year-old childrens learning of labels for novel shape categories. There were four between-subject condi-tions: comparison, contrast (informative), contrast (neutral), and one-example. Each condition heard the novel word threetimes, the difference was in the number of objects (one-example vs. the rest) and the object presentations (comparative vs.contrastive). The test asked children to extend the label to a new example of the category. The results counter-intuitivelyshow that learning from one example outperforms learning from multiple examples via comparison or contrast, suggestinga detrimental role of comparison and contrast for shape categories for children at this level of vocabulary knowledge.

In semantic fluency tasks, speakers name as many category exemplars as possible within a time limit. After age 8 to9 years, bilinguals produce fewer words in semantic fluency tasks than monolinguals (e.g., Friesen et al., 2015). Thiseffect may result from differences in how monolinguals and bilinguals search their semantic networks (e.g., Sandoval etal., 2010), which we examined here. Five- to 11-year-old monolinguals and bilinguals (n=300) completed a semanticfluency task. Monolinguals produced more words with age (r=.27, p=.001), whereas bilinguals did not (r=.11, p=.43).However, with age, bilinguals (r=-.32, p=.016)–but not monolinguals (r=.04, p=.65)–produced lower frequency words.Additionally, Latent Semantic Analysis revealed bilinguals to produce more semantically similar words in sequence withage (bilinguals: r=-.26, p=.05; monolinguals: r=.02, p=.83). These findings suggest bilingual children may develop moreefficient semantic search strategies than monolinguals.

Although many executive function (EF) tasks require only nonverbal responses, the language used by experimenters to explain the task may be important for young children's EF task performance. This study investigated how the vocabulary used in explaining an EF task affects 2-year-olds' performance. Experiment 1 used the standard instructions for the Reverse Categorization Task, in which children are asked to sort different-sized blocks into different-sized buckets according to one rule and then switch to a new rule. In Experiment 2, the task remained the same, but different instructions requiring less knowledge of size words were used. Children's productive vocabulary was assessed in both experiments but was only correlated with task performance in Experiment 1. These results suggest that task-specific vocabulary knowledge may play a role in children's performance on tasks designed to measure nonverbal cognitive ability.

A wide body of research has investigated the early cognitive and social-cognitive consequences of bilingualism, with mixed results. In some cases, bilingual children have been shown to attend more to social-pragmatic cues (e.g., eye gaze) than monolinguals (Brojde et al., 2012; Yow & Markman, 2011), especially when social-pragmatic cues conflict with lower-level perceptual cues (e.g., proximity). Because attention to social-pragmatic cues is important for language learning (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2005), this dissertation investigated differences in monolingual and bilingual two-year-olds’ attention to social-pragmatic cues, and how this attention related to language acquisition. This study used a novel approach of combining 1) an eye-tracking word learning paradigm, 2) live-action social tasks, and 3) parent-report measures of vocabulary development with a longitudinal design to measure changes in children’s attention to social-pragmatic cues related to vocabulary growth over a 6-month period.Participants were observed at 24 months (T1) and 27 months (T2) of age. During each lab visit, participants first completed an eye-tracking word-learning task in which they saw videos of a model looking to one of two novel objects (visually salient or nonsalient) on a table and labeling it with a novel word. After these learning videos, participants were presented with three test trials that assessed their mapping of the novel word to the novel object. In addition to the eye-tracking task, participants completed three live-action social tasks that assessed their attention to an experimenter’s gaze cues. Also at T1 and T2, parents filled out MCDIs (a checklist of productive vocabulary) for their children; parents also completed follow-up MCDIs when their child was 30 months old (T3).At T1, children’s performance on both the eye-tracking and the social tasks reflected difficulty attending to social cues in the presence of other conflicting information (e.g., salience). There

A wide body of research has investigated the early cognitive and social-cognitive consequences of bilingualism, with mixed results. In some cases, bilingual children have been shown to attend more to social-pragmatic cues (e.g., eye gaze) than monolinguals (Brojde et al., 2012; Yow & Markman, 2011), especially when social-pragmatic cues conflict with lower-level perceptual cues (e.g., proximity). Because attention to social-pragmatic cues is important for language learning (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2005), this dissertation investigated differences in monolingual and bilingual two-year-olds’ attention to social-pragmatic cues, and how this attention related to language acquisition. This study used a novel approach of combining 1) an eye-tracking word learning paradigm, 2) live-action social tasks, and 3) parent-report measures of vocabulary development with a longitudinal design to measure changes in children’s attention to social-pragmatic cues related to vocabulary growth over a 6-month period.Participants were observed at 24 months (T1) and 27 months (T2) of age. During each lab visit, participants first completed an eye-tracking word-learning task in which they saw videos of a model looking to one of two novel objects (visually salient or nonsalient) on a table and labeling it with a novel word. After these learning videos, participants were presented with three test trials that assessed their mapping of the novel word to the novel object. In addition to the eye-tracking task, participants completed three live-action social tasks that assessed their attention to an experimenter’s gaze cues. Also at T1 and T2, parents filled out MCDIs (a checklist of productive vocabulary) for their children; parents also completed follow-up MCDIs when their child was 30 months old (T3).At T1, children’s performance on both the eye-tracking and the social tasks reflected difficulty attending to social cues in the presence of other conflicting information (e.g., salience). There