Language development beyond the here-and-now: Iconicity and displacement in child-directed communication

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistic Development
• Child Language Acquisition

Background:

• Most language refers to absent entities (past, future, hypothetical), presenting a challenge for word learning.
• Iconic cues, which imagistically represent absent referents, are hypothesized to aid learning in displaced contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether caregivers use iconic cues to support children's word learning for displaced referents.
• To examine how object familiarity influences the use of iconic cues in caregiver-child interactions.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of an audio-visual corpus of 71 English-speaking caregiver-child dyads (24-58 months).
• Coding of caregiver vocal, manual, and looking behaviors in contexts with familiar/unfamiliar objects, present/displaced.

Main Results:

• Caregivers produced significantly more iconic cues when objects were displaced compared to when they were present.
• Iconic cues were used more frequently for unfamiliar objects than for familiar ones, particularly in displaced contexts.
• Alternative cues were employed when objects were physically present.

Conclusions:

• Iconic cues play a crucial role in facilitating word learning for absent referents, especially for unfamiliar items.
• Caregivers strategically adapt their communication strategies, utilizing iconic cues to bridge the gap between words and displaced objects.