Exploration of multiple memory processes in children’s mapping and generalising of novel nouns

Bakopoulou, Maria Eleni (2024) Exploration of multiple memory processes in children’s mapping and generalising of novel nouns. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Young children typically acquire vocabulary, particularly names for things, at a rapid pace during toddlerhood. Prior research suggests that children’s word learning is influenced by multiple factors including the amount of input they hear, their own motivation, temperament, and a host of cultural factors. Attention and memory processes may also be related to differences in children’s vocabulary development. In particular, a long line of research suggests that when toddlers learn new names, they demonstrate biases to attend to some features of objects more than others. Aspects of memory for visual stimuli and object processing may be particularly relevant for learning object names. The present thesis aims to further advance our understanding of the relation between attention, and visual memory at multiple timescales by investigating three research questions. Firstly, how the automatic allocation of attention when generalising novel nouns is related to vocabulary. Secondly, what is the relationship between object memory and early vocabulary development. Thirdly, what is the relationship between shape bias, children’s vocabulary, visual attention, and multiple memory timescales. Key findings include a replication of prior work showing that more attention to the shape of objects is positively related to vocabulary and that nouns cue attention to shape; that it might be the relative size of the vocabulary, rather than absolute number of words known, that is related to object memory; and that there is a relation between visual working memory and retention of new name-object mappings, but only for children with smaller vocabularies. Overall, the data presented in this thesis contribute to memory and vocabulary development research by confirming relations between attention allocation in naming tasks and vocabulary and between memory at multiple timescales and word learning. Our results set the stage for future work on word learning and multiple memory types, essential in understanding word learning development.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	11 Feb 2025 09:01
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2025 09:01
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98444
DOI:

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