How do young children process language and learn words from book-related experiences?

How do young children learn words from book-related experiences? The contribution of early mechanisms of lexical processing to vocabulary development from a socially-contingent language input in French preschoolers. When children enter preschool, they have a lot of knowledge about their native language, acquired from birth through uniquely human cognitive mechanisms of language processing, among which, the consonant bias for lexical processing (Nespor et al., 2003). This important lexical and phonological processing mechanism whereby consonants are better encoded in words is known to facilitate word processing for adults almost universally. Infants start using it in their quest for words at different ages depending on their native language as soon as the end of the first year in French, Italian and Spanish infants (see Bouchon, Hochmann & Toro, 2022 for a review). However, this mechanism and phonetic detail of word processing has been less explored in preschoolers (Creel, 2019) and with mixed and unexpected findings with regards to infant data (Havy et al., 2011; Bouchon & Nazzi, in prep; Creel, 2022; Frye & Creel, 2022). This project aims at exploring the relationship between this mechanism of language processing and vocabulary acquisition, which remains largely unexplored. With new norms of parental homeschooling and online social interactions due to the pandemic, there is renewed interest within the field of language development for the importance of social cues (Gaudreau et al., 2020). Social contingency cues are crucial for learning (Roseberry et al., 2014) and in particular book-related experiences are known to expose children to a rich, complex linguistically and socially contingent input that contributes to language, in particular vocabulary learning (Tamis‐LeMonda et al., 2019; Flack et al., 2018). Thus, this project seeks to identify preschooler's audio-visual speech processing (Altvater-Mackensen & Grossmann, 2015) and attentionnal processes involved during a relatively naturalistic communicative context : adult-child Shared Book Reading (SBR). Using innovative methods, a series of experiments will assess children’s audiovisual speech processing, as well as their lexical learning outcomes, in controlled face-to-face interactive experiments. This will provide new insights on how both measures of processing and learning evolve throughout preschool, as language develops and children are gradually exposed to formal literacy at school. Under the supervision of C. Bouchon, the intern will be given the opportunity to learn every step of carrying out experimental work with young children, in particular: - acquiring theoretical expertise in the fields of developmental psycholinguistics, i.e. early language processing mechanisms in young children, the impact of social contingency on language development, early-education issues, in particular on how to promote vocabulary development, a crucial predictor of literacy. - developing methodological skills, i.e., designing child-friendly paradigms; building linguistic stimuli; participant recruitment; collecting looking time data with eye-tracking glasses;; data preprocessing and analyses; statistical analyzes and interpretation. - collaborating with international researchers. Outcome of the internship: Depending on the intern’s motivation and performance, their implication in the publication and dissemination process and pursuing within the project as a PhD student will be discussed. References 1. Nespor et al., 2003. Lingue e linguaggio, 2(2), 203-230. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1418/10879 2. Bouchon, Hochmann & Toro, 2022. JECP, 221, 105444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105444 3. Havy et al., 2011. JECP, 108(1), 25‑43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.08.002; 4. Bouchon & Nazzi, in prep. 5. Creel, 2019. In Psychol Learn Motiv (71, p. 67‑105). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.plm.2019.07.003 6. Creel, S. C. (2022). In J of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00029 7. Frye, C. I., & Creel, S. C. (2022). Brain and Language, 226, 105078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105078 8. Gaudreau et al., 2020. Front Psychol, 11, 2158. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02158 9. Roseberry et al., 2014. Child Dev, 85(3), 956‑970. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12166 10. Tamis‐LeMonda et al., 2019. Child Dev, 90(6), 2135‑2152. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13089 11. Flack et al., 2018. Dev Psychol, 54(7), 1334‑1346. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000512 12. Altvater-Mackensen & Grossmann, 2015. Child Development, 86(2), 362‑378. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12320