Research
Current Studies
Our lab is interested in better understanding how children and college students learn about the world. Check out the descriptions below to learn about our ongoing projects!
Spatial Word Learning
Over the past decade, research has demonstrated that spatial skills in early childhood - navigating environments, mentally visualizing and rotating objects, and understanding relationships between objects - help promote later academic success. In our lab, we aim to build on this research by exploring how children acquire spatial language (e.g., "close", "across", "up", etc.), which has been linked to spatial ability. We are exploring this by seeing if a lab-created storybook can help 2- to 2.5-year-old children learn different spatial words and by assessing how different spatial words are represented in popular press books. We are actively recruiting participants, so if you're interested, be sure to complete our recruitment form!
Word Learning from Books and Screens
Young children learn words in a lot of different contexts - when playing at the park, when cooking in the kitchen with parents, and when reading books at bedtime, among many others. Importantly, there has been a noticeable increase in young children's use of screen time in recent years, yet there is limited research on how this increase in screen time is impacting word learning. Thus, this line of work is interested in better understanding how the format in which young children first experience a word, whether from a book or video, impacts their learning, and if parental support during the process can help improve learning. We are actively recruiting 2.5- to 3-year-old children for this project, so please reach out to us or complete the recruitment form if you are interested!
Remembering What We Read
Children and adults alike read all the time and in a variety of formats - on paper, eReaders, desktop and laptop computers, and phones. Researchers have long been interested in if the format in which we encounter text matters, and our lab is interested if the format might matter for classroom learning. After the onset of the pandemic, more students completed learning on their computers and there was an increase report in the number of students completing reading on their phones. Thus, this line of research is exploring if how students read impacts their memory for what they read, with the hope that we will be able to contribute tips for best reading and study practices.
Recent Presentations
Vasich, S., & Lorenz, M. G. (March 2024). Calling all caregivers: Examining technoference in children's museum exhibits. Poster presented at the 13th biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Pasadena, CA, & annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL. Reprint
Freitag, N.G., Notestein, K.A., Witecha, G.L., Lorenz, M.G., & Kucker, S.C. (April 2022). What does it neem? The role of social contingency in word learning through digital media. Poster presented at the 12th biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Madison, WI. Reprint
Hall, S.L., Dillon, K.E., & Lorenz, M.G. (April 2022). Training "close" and "far" during shared book reading. Poster presented at the 12th biennial meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Madison, WI. Reprint
Dillon, K.E., Ferruzza, S., Flinchem, J.A., Gustafson, M., Niederer, B. (April 2021). Spatial language learning via storybooks. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, online. Reprint
Flinchem, J.A., Lorenz, M.G., & Kucker, S.C. (April 2021). Influential factors on generalization and retention in a novel noun generalization task. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, online. Reprint
Publications
Bakopoulou, M., Lorenz, M. G., Forbes, S. H., Tremlin, R., Bates, J., & Samuelson, L. K. (2023). Vocabulary and automatic attention: The relation between novel words and gaze dynamics in noun generalization. Developmental Science, 26(6), e13399. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13399
Lorenz, M.G., & Plumert, J.M. (2019). Mother-child communication about relative proximity to a landmark: What role does prototypicality play? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 178, 41-59. doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.09.011
Kucker, S.C., Samuelson, L.K., Perry, L.K., Yoshida, H., Colunga, E., Lorenz, M.G., & Smith, L.B. (2019). Reproducibility and a unifying explanation: Lessons from the shape bias. Infant Behavior and Development, 54, 156-165. doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.004
Perone, S., Plebanek, D., Lorenz, M.G., Spencer, J.P., & Samuelson, L.S. (2019). Empirical tests of a brain-based model of executive function development. Child Development, 90, 210-226. doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12885
Samuelon L.K., & Galligan, M. (2014). Dynamic systems theory and language development. In P.J. Brooks and V. Kempe (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Language Development. Sage Publications.