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Development of Embodied Word Meanings: Sensorimotor Effects in Children's Lexical Processing
Michelle Inkster1, Michele Wellsby1, Ellen Lloyd1
1Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary Calgary, AB, Canada.
Frontiers in Psychology
|March 26, 2016
Summary
Children younger than 8 benefit from words with high imageability and child-rated body-object interaction (child-BOI). This suggests richer semantic understanding in young children, supporting embodied word meaning theories.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
Background:
- Previous studies linked body-object interaction (BOI) to word naming in older children (8+ years).
- Prior BOI ratings were based on adult experiences, not children's.
- Younger children's lexical skills are better assessed via auditory tasks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of child-specific body-object interaction (child-BOI) on word processing in young children.
- To examine the combined effects of child-BOI and imageability on auditory word naming.
- To explore semantic representation development in children under 8 years.
Main Methods:
- Collected child-BOI ratings from parents for a set of words.
- Administered an auditory word naming task to 54 children (6-7 years) and 25 adults.
- Analyzed naming latencies in relation to word imageability and child-BOI scores.
Main Results:
- Both word imageability and child-BOI significantly affected children's auditory naming latencies.
- Children aged 6-7 years showed faster naming for high imageability and high child-BOI words.
- Adults also showed similar patterns, though not explicitly detailed in the abstract.
Conclusions:
- Children under 8 possess richer semantic representations for words with high imageability and high child-BOI.
- Findings support embodied cognition theories, suggesting word meaning is grounded in sensory and motor experiences.
- Child-BOI is a significant factor in early word processing, extending previous findings to younger age groups.
Keywords:
auditory namingbody–object interactionimageabilitylanguage developmentsemantic processingsensorimotorMore Related Videos
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