Use of a head camera to examine maternal input and its relation to 10- to 26-month-olds’ acquisition of mental and non-mental state vocabulary

Ruffman, Ted; Lorimer, Ben; Vanier, Sarah; Scarf, Damian; Du, Kangning; Taumoepeau, Mele

doi:10.1017/s0305000920000240

Cited by 4 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Studies focusing on object labeling within JA episodes have also shown that multimodal cues are associated with the child's productive vocabulary development (Akhtar et al, 1991;Dunham et al, 1993). These findings demonstrate the importance of simultaneous multimodal input (e.g., labeling while handling the object) for enhancing a child's word learning and later achievements (Chang & Deák, 2019;Deák et al, 2000;Ruffman et al, 2020).…”

Section: Parent's Referential Cuesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Why the parent's gaze is so powerful in organizing the infant's gaze: The relationship between parental referential cues and infant object looking

Sun

Yoshida

2022

Infancy

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Parental scaffolding such as looking at and showing objects has long been considered to be helpful for early attention and language development. However, relatively little is known about how parental social multimodal cues work alone or together in guiding an infant's attention toward the referent items. The present study aims to document the dynamics of social referential input during an interac tive play session and specify the different types of social cues in directing infant attention. Forty-three parent-infant dyads (infants aged from 5.0 to 18.0 months) in the U.S. completed a short play session recorded by head-mounted camera with eye-trackers. The present findings suggest that joint attention between parent and infant toward the same referent item often co-occurred with other referential input.Infants were more likely to maintain sustained attention to an object under the circumstance that the parent looked at the same item and named it explicitly. This was not the case when parent object looking accompanied other utterances, like "Look!" or the child's name. The present study highlights the importance of multimodal referential input, which sets up enriched opportunities for children to become sensitive to social input and develop sustained attention for further learning.

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Section: Parent's Referential Cuesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Why the parent's gaze is so powerful in organizing the infant's gaze: The relationship between parental referential cues and infant object looking

Sun

Yoshida

2022

Infancy

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“…More research has been focused on parental MST as related specifically to child MST compared to general child language development. To my knowledge, only three studies have presented data on the latter in children 2 years old or younger (Farkas et al, 2018;Olson & Masur, 2020;Ruffman et al, 2020). Of these, two found concurrent and positive associations between parental MST and child language abilities (Olson & Masur, 2020;Ruffman et al, 2020) whereas one found a concurrent and negative association (Farkas et al, 2018).…”

Section: Relation Between Mental State Talk and Language Developmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…To my knowledge, only three studies have presented data on the latter in children 2 years old or younger (Farkas et al, 2018;Olson & Masur, 2020;Ruffman et al, 2020). Of these, two found concurrent and positive associations between parental MST and child language abilities (Olson & Masur, 2020;Ruffman et al, 2020) whereas one found a concurrent and negative association (Farkas et al, 2018). Two of these studies investigated predictive associations and both found that parental MST positively predicted later child language abilities (Farkas et al, 2018;Olson & Masur, 2020).…”

Section: Relation Between Mental State Talk and Language Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The former was measured at 9 months and linked both concurrently and predictively and the latter was concurrently measured at the age of 25 months. Based on previous research, we expected that Appropriate MM would predict later language development but not be concurrently associated (e.g., Laranjo & Bernier, 2013;Longobardi et al, 2018;Meins et al, 2013) and we expected that the more MST, the better child language development (e.g., Olson & Masur, 2020;Ruffman et al, 2020;Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008. For both MM and MST, one possible explanation could again be that the significant associations are of a more predictive character than concurrent character.…”

Section: Relation Between Language Environment and Language Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Talking With Each Other : The Role of Language Environment Factors on Early Language Development From Different Perspectives

Nyberg

2022

Linköping Studies in Behavioural Science

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A crucial aspect of children's language development is the language environment, and parental and home environment factors are particularly important during the early years. The overarching aim of this thesis was to investigate typically developed young children's language development in relation to parental and family home language environment factors. Specifically, language development was assessed in Swedish-learning children at 9 and 25 months of age. Different research perspectives and methods were used to gain a more nuanced understanding of the contributing factors to children's language development.This thesis is based on four papers that each cover different factors in the language environment. Papers I-III are based within developmental psychology and Paper IV is based within discursive psychology. Paper I investigated the relation between several language environment factors in the home and children's language development at 9 months. The results showed that linguistic input and child vocalization were significantly and positively associated with language development. This was not the case for interaction or electronic sound. Paper II investigated parental mental state talk (MST) and its relation to children's MST and general language development at 25 months. Parental MST was not significantly associated with either children's MST nor their general language development. Paper III investigated the relation between parental mind-mindedness (MM) when children were 9 months old and child language development at 9 and 25 months old. Parental MM was not significantly associated with language development at either 9 or 25 months. Paper IV examined in detail how children used MST, specifically the word vill 'want' in parent-child interactions. The results showed that children's use of the word vill 'want' accomplished several social actions, such as requesting, rejecting, and accounting for their own behavior.The results suggest a complex interaction between language environment factors and language development that can be examined from different research perspectives. This thesis has been a first step for developmental psychology and discursive psychology to talk with each other and describe the contributions of each perspective to the phenomena of language development. How the relation between language environment and language development is researched depends on the theoretical approach and further research is needed in collaboration between approaches to gain as rich knowledge about child language as possible.

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“…Mothers also completed two questionnaires to measure children's receptive and productive vocabulary (see Appendix B) -the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI): Words and Gestures (Fenson et al, 1994) -along with a Mental State Supplement (see Appendix B) used in several previous studies (Ruffman et al, 2018(Ruffman et al, , 2020Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006. Parental report has been shown to be a valid measure of child language (e.g., Feldman et al, 2005).…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to behavioral regularities in everyday life predicts infants’ acquisition of mental state vocabulary

Ruffman

Chen

Lorimer

et al. 2022

Developmental Science

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There are two broad views of children's theory of mind. The mentalist view is that it emerges in infancy and is possibly innate. The minimalist view is that it emerges more gradually in childhood and is heavily dependent on learning. According to minimalism, children initially understand behaviors rather than mental states, and they are assisted in doing so by recognizing repeating patterns in behavior. The regularities in behavior allow them to predict future behaviors, succeed on theory-of-mind tasks, acquire mental state words, and eventually, understand the mental states underlying behavior. The present study provided the first clear evidence for the plausibility of this view by fitting head cameras to 54 infants aged 6 to 25 months, and recording their view of the world in their daily lives. At 6 and 12 months, infants viewed an average of 146.5 repeated behaviors per hour, a rate consistent with approximately 560,000 repetitions in their first year, and with repetitions correlating with children's acquisition of mental state words, even after controlling for their general vocabulary and a range of variables indexing social interaction. We also recorded infants' view of people searching or searching for and retrieving objects. These were 92 times less common and did not correlate with mental state vocabulary. Overall, the findings indicate that repeated behaviors provide a rich source of information for children that would readily allow them to recognize patterns in behavior and help them acquire mental state words, providing the first clear evidence for this claim of minimalism. K E Y W O R D S mentalism, minimalism, theory of mind Research Highlights• Six-to 25-month-olds wore head cameras to record home life from infants' point-ofview and help adjudicate between nativist and minimalist views of theory-of-mind (ToM).

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Use of a head camera to examine maternal input and its relation to 10- to 26-month-olds’ acquisition of mental and non-mental state vocabulary

Cited by 4 publications

References 36 publications

Why the parent's gaze is so powerful in organizing the infant's gaze: The relationship between parental referential cues and infant object looking

Why the parent's gaze is so powerful in organizing the infant's gaze: The relationship between parental referential cues and infant object looking

Talking With Each Other : The Role of Language Environment Factors on Early Language Development From Different Perspectives

Exposure to behavioral regularities in everyday life predicts infants’ acquisition of mental state vocabulary

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