Research

My research investigates early word learning, both from a descriptive/ecological and an experimental approach.

In my ecological work, I explore the characteristics of naming events in the real world. As part of this line of work, I have contributed data to the SAYcam project, which includes longitudinal headcam video and audio footage from three children. Recordings were sampled for about 90 minutes twice a week from 7 to 30 months of age. See here for some media coverage of this project.

In my experimental work, I’m interested in what infants and young children learn about words beyond the word-referent association.

Development of Semantic Relationships

The study of word learning traditionally investigates how infants map a label (e.g. “dog”) onto a referent (e.g. furry, slobbery four-legged animal). However, as adults we know much more about words, including the semantic relationships between them. I am interested when semantic relationship knowledge emerges and how children learn the relevant semantic relationships in their language and the world. In this line of work, I use a combination of methods, including the Headturn Preference Procedure, Looking-While-Listening (Intermodal Preference procedure), and free association tasks. My postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia investigated the differences in semantic relationships knowledge between bilingual and monolingual infants.

Word Learning in Context

Another line of research investigates the role of context in word learning. When young children hear words, they are often tied to specific contexts; you talk about spoons in the kitchen and toothbrushes in the bathroom. How does this context specificity effect learning? What information are children actually encoding when they're learning new words? I’m am using eye-tracking to investigate the role of context in children’s word learning and word processing.

Memory and Early Word Learning

I am also interested what early memory development can tell us about how children learn words. While many word learning studies explore how young children encode novel words, there is very little known about how children remember those new words over time. I am interested in using what we know about infant memory to inform the study of word learning. My dissertation project explored the differences in what children remember about a novel word referent vs. a novel word's context.