Presenter(s): Allison Zhou − Biology
Faculty Mentor(s): Caitlin Fausey
Oral Session 2SW
Research Area: Developmental Psychology
Funding: UO VPRI, UO WGS
Infants’ first words include the names of objects that appear frequently in their lives. Could these frequent objects also help them learn the names of less common objects? We know from prior research that what people see and hear is largely structured so that there are a small number of ubiquitous items and a large number that are much less prevalent. In the present study, we test the hypothesis that the shape of a frequency distribution matters for how infants pay attention to its instances. In ongoing work, infants (16-30 months old) view pictures of novel objects that vary in both color and size. Infants sample the pictures one-at-a-time from either (a) a uniform distribution, where infants see each unique object an equal number of times, or (b) a non-uniform distribution, where infants see one of the objects six times more often than the others. Specifically, we measure how many object pictures the infant chooses to observe before they stop engaging in our task. Data collection is ongoing. We predict infants to pay significantly more attention to sequences of objects sampled from a non- uniform distribution. The non-uniform distribution has higher rates of repetition and may encourage the learner to compare newly seen objects to the familiar anchor. Learning about objects and their names requires encountering them. Our research will yield new insight into how object distributions potentiate the ways infants attend to their world.