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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Evidence for top-down constraints and form-based prediction in 4-5 year-olds' lexical processing
Margaret Kandel1, Nan Li2, Jesse Snedeker1
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA.
Cognition
|January 17, 2026
Summary
Young children exhibit interactive processing in language comprehension, using context to understand words early in life. This suggests interactive mechanisms are fundamental to cognitive development.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Interactive processing, involving top-down and bottom-up pathways, is key to human cognition.
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of interactive processing is crucial for cognitive science.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether interactive processing emerges early in childhood or develops later.
- To determine if young children utilize top-down cues for language comprehension.
Main Methods:
- A visual world eye-tracking study was conducted with four and five-year-old children.
- Participants' spoken word recognition and use of contextual information were analyzed.
Main Results:
- Children demonstrated top-down interactivity during spoken word recognition, similar to adults.
- Young children used sentence context to constrain word processing and pre-activate predictable words.
Conclusions:
- The neural pathways for interactive processing are active and robust in early childhood.
- Interactive processing mechanisms appear to be intrinsic to the human mind's architecture from an early age.
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