Objects Shape Activation during Spoken Word Recognition in Preschoolers with Typical and Atypical Language Development: An Eye-tracking Study

ABSTRACT

Visually situated spoken words activate phonological, visual, and semantic representations guiding overt attention during visual exploration. We compared the activation of these representations in children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) across four eye-tracking experiments, with a particular focus on visual (shape) representations. Two types of trials were presented in each experiment. In Experiment 1, participants heard a word while seeing (1) an object visually associated with the spoken word (i.e., shape competitor) together with a phonologically related object (i.e., cohort competitor), or (2) a shape competitor with an unrelated object. In Experiment 2 and 3, participants heard a word while seeing (1) a shape competitor with an object semantically related to the spoken word (i.e., semantic competitor), or (2) a shape competitor with an unrelated object. In Experiment 4, children heard a word while seeing a semantic competitor with (1) the visual referent of the spoken or (2) with an unrelated object. The visual context was previewed for three seconds before the spoken word, except for Experiment 2, where it appeared at the onset of the spoken word (i.e., no preview). The results showed that when a preview was provided both groups were equally attracted by cohort and semantic competitors and preferred the shape competitors over the unrelated objects. However, shape preference disappeared in the DLD group when no preview was provided and when the shape competitor was presented with a semantic competitor. Our results indicate that children with DLD have a less efficient retrieval of shape representation during word recognition compared to typically developing children.

Acknowledgments

We thank all families for their participation and contribution to this research. This work is supported by Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID, Government of Chile) under Grant number REDI170285 (CJC, AH), Individual FONDECYT grants 1170705 (CJC) and FONDECYT 11180334 (AH), and a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (reference: ANR-10-LABX-0083 – LabEx EFL). It contributes to the IdEx Université de Paris – ANR-18-IDEX-0001. Funding from ANID/PIA/Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence Project FB0003 is also gratefully acknowledged (CJC, EG, AH).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

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Notes

¹ We reckon that using pairs of objects might have posited some limitations to our interpretations of experimental conditions where two competitor objects were presented without an unrelated object. However, considering that we are examining a relatively young sample of children, and one of the groups is a clinical population known to have difficulties in picture naming (e.g., Coady, 2013; Sheng & Mcgregor, 2010), we decided to minimize the possibility of children not internally mentioning objects’ names by using only two objects in the visual context. An important assumption of our manipulation is that, provided enough time (i.e., 3000 ms of display preview), our participants would be able to (implicitly) name the objects they are seeing. This decision is also based on the number of visual objects presented in previous visual world studies, which varies widely (e.g., two objects in Carminati & Knoeferle, 2013; three objects in Kronmüller & Barr, 2007; four objects in Huettig & McQueen, 2007; five objects in Altmann & Kamide, 1999; eight objects in Chambers et al., 2002), with many visual world studies in young children using only two objects in the display (e.g., Mani & Huettig, 2012). Thus, we believe that conclusions drawn based on data across conditions and experiments are warranted.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche [ANR-18-IDEX-0001,ANR-10-LABX-0083]; Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica [11171074, 11180334,1170705, Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence FB0003]; Cooperación Internacional: Multilateral y vinculación - CONICYT [REDI170285].