Mediated semantic priming interference in toddlers as seen through pupil dynamics.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Mediated priming reveals spreading activation in the lexical system.
• Previous studies show phonosemantic priming in toddlers, but within-level semantic priming remains unclear.
• Understanding early semantic processing is crucial for cognitive development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate semantic mediated priming in 24-month-old toddlers.
• To determine if activation spreads freely within the semantic level in early development.
• To explore pupil dilation as a neurophysiological marker in preferential looking tasks.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a preferential looking task with eye-tracking technology.
• Presented toddlers with prime-mediator-target word sequences (semantic relations).
• Compared looking times and pupil dilation between related and unrelated conditions.

Main Results:

• Toddlers exhibited reduced target word looking in the related condition.
• Increased pupil dilation was observed in the related condition, particularly in the latter half of the analysis.
• These findings suggest partially free but modulated spreading activation at the semantic level.

Conclusions:

• 24-month-old toddlers demonstrate semantic mediated priming effects.
• Spreading activation within the semantic level is present but modulated in infancy.
• Pupil dilation is a viable neurophysiological indicator for priming effects in infant studies.