Young toddlers' word comprehension is flexible and efficient.

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Linguistics

Background:

• Eyetracking studies are a primary method for understanding word recognition in toddlers.
• Previous research suggested toddlers might use task-specific strategies in word recognition tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether toddlers' word recognition relies on a closed-set strategy or active lexical search.
• To examine toddlers' spoken word comprehension in scenarios with single or multiple lexical referents.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a visual world eye-tracking task with 77 toddlers (mean age 21 months).
• Included pictures with one likely toddler name (e.g., 'apple') and two likely names (e.g., 'cup' or 'juice').
• A picture-labeling task was also employed to assess comprehension.

Main Results:

• Toddlers demonstrated equal speed and accuracy in fixating pictures with one or two likely names.
• No recognition benefit was observed if toddlers named pictures to themselves.
• Understanding alternative lexical interpretations of pictures incurred no cost for toddlers.

Conclusions:

• Toddlers' word recognition is not based on a closed-set strategy but reflects efficient lexical search.
• Spoken words rapidly activate their referents in toddlers' mental lexicon, similar to adults.
• Toddlers possess a flexible word recognition system capable of handling multiple potential referents.