Poster C38, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 10:45 am – 12:30 pm, Restaurant Hall
Implicit and explicit access to partial word knowledge in school-aged children
Brittany Sharp1, Alyson Abel1, Chanel Konja1;1San Diego State University
Vocabulary is one area of language that continues to develop through the school years and continues into adulthood. Children in 3rd through 9th grade learn an average of 3,000 words per year, about 8 per day. Vocabulary learning switches from direct teaching to incidental learning without explicit instruction around 3rd grade. Incidental learning requires multiple exposures to the new word and its associated meaning. However, one challenge in the study of word learning is how to determine whether a word has been learned. It has been identified that pre-familiarization of word form alone versus word form plus meaning differentially aided in learning for 4th-6th grade students. Similarly, it has been identified that in 5-9 year old children, novel words learned with meaning were retained better in long-term memory compared to novel words learned without meaning. In this study, we examine whether partial word knowledge can be differentially accessed using implicit (EEG) and explicit (behavioral) methods. Thirty-five (35) children aged 8 to 11 (M=9;4) completed two tasks while their EEG was being recorded: 1) Word Learning task and 2) Recognition task. In the Word Learning task, participants listened to sentence triplets with the same nonword at the end; some of the novel words had meanings attached (Meaning condition) and some did not have a related meaning (No Meaning condition). The Recognition task directly followed the Word Learning task and asked the children to identify, by indicating yes or no via button press, if they had previously heard the word in the Word Learning task with three conditions (yes with Meaning attached, yes but with No Meaning attached and New not previously heard). This study focused on the Recognition task results. Behaviorally, the children demonstrated below chance performance (A’: Meaning=0.41, No Meaning=0.42, New=0.41) for identifying words they had/had not heard previously. EEG analysis produced significant findings for both the N400 and P200 ERP components. The N400, associated with semantic processing, was significant for meaning and had a more positive amplitude for Meaning vs No Meaning and New conditions. The P200 component revealed a significant interaction, though no significant effects of condition or location were found. Follow up univariate analysis revealed that the P200 was more positive for the Meaning and No Meaning vs. New conditions, consistent with a previously determined old/new effect. However, the P200 component is not yet associated with indexing a specific semantic process, though it has been proposed to be related to memory. Very few studies containing auditory stimuli have been conducted leading to significant P200 ERP components so additional studies are needed. Together, these results indicate that children can access word form and meaning together implicitly, even if they are unable to explicitly indicate word recognition. In addition, the results reveal N400 and P200 ERP components differentially access word form and meaning for recently learned words.
Themes: Meaning: Lexical Semantics, Development
Method: Electrophysiology (MEG/EEG/ECOG)