Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgements
1
Overview and aims
Study 1: Familiar word recognition and lexical competition
Study 2: Referent selection and mispronunciations
Summary
2
Research hypotheses
Study 1: Familiar word recognition and lexical competition
Study 2: Referent selection and mispronunciations
Study 1: Familiar word recognition and lexical competition
3
Familiar word recognition
3.1
Lexical processing dynamics
3.2
Individual differences in word recognition
3.3
The current study
4
Method
4.1
Participants
4.2
Visual World Paradigm
4.3
Experiment administration
4.4
Stimuli
4.5
Data screening
4.6
Model preparation
5
Analysis of familiar word recognition
5.1
Growth curve analysis
5.1.1
Growth curve features as measures of word recognition performance
5.2
Year over year changes in word recognition performance
5.3
Exploring plausible ranges of performance over time
5.4
Are individual differences stable over time?
5.5
Predicting future vocabulary size
5.6
Discussion
6
Effects of phonological and semantic competitors
6.1
Looks to the phonological competitor
6.2
Looks to the semantic competitor
6.3
Child-level differences in competitor sensitivity at age 3
6.4
Discussion
6.4.1
Immediate activation of phonological neighbors
6.4.2
Late activation of semantic neighbors
6.4.3
Lexical competitors and child-level predictors
7
General discussion
7.1
How to improve word recognition
7.2
Learn words and learn connections between words
7.3
Individual differences are most important at younger ages
7.4
Limitations and implications
8
Hypothesis check
Study 2: Referent selection and mispronunciations
9
Mispronunciations and referent selection
9.1
How phonetically detailed are children’s words?
9.2
How to handle nonwords
9.3
The current study
10
Method
10.1
Mispronunciation task
10.2
Visual stimuli
10.3
Novel word retention tests
10.4
Data screening
10.4.1
Classifying trials based on initial fixation location
10.5
Model preparation
11
Development of referent selection
11.1
Nonwords versus familiar words
11.2
Does age-3 referent selection better predict age-5 vocabulary?
11.3
Discussion
12
Sensitivity to mispronunciations
12.1
Unfamiliar-initial trials: Move along now
12.1.1
Child-level predictors
12.2
Familiar-initial trials: Should I stay or should I go now?
12.2.1
Child-level predictors and different listening behaviors
12.3
Looking behaviors and word learning
12.4
Discussion
13
General discussion
13.1
A lexical processing account of the results
13.2
A nonword is just a word you haven’t learned yet
13.3
Limitations and implications
14
Hypothesis check
Overall discussion
15
General discussion of both studies
15.1
Mechanisms of word recognition
15.1.1
Open questions about word recognition mechanisms
15.2
Clinical implications
15.3
Contributions
Appendix
A
Items used in Study 1
B
Computational details for Study 1
B.1
Growth curve analyses
B.1.1
Convergence diagnostics for Bayesian models
B.2
Generalized additive models
C
Items used in Study 2
D
Computational details for Study 2
D.1
Real words versus nonwords growth curves
D.2
Mispronunciation growth curves
D.3
Item-response analysis for novel word retention
E
Effects of specific mispronunciations in Study 2
F
Related work
References
Created with bookdown
Tristan Mahr
Development of word recognition in preschoolers
Dedication
For Penny