Project Details
Description
Infant language development is remarkably rapid in the first years of life – and infants also sleep a greater proportion of the time than anyone else. Since adult studies have shown an important role for sleep in consolidating word learning, we attempted to lay the foundation for the first studies of the role of sleep in infant word learning, using naturalistic exposure through parental book reading with testing for memory for those words in the lab. We compared how well the words were remembered by infants immediately after the reading, or after a 4 hours' gap, during which one group of infants napped and another did not.
Layman's description
Infant language development is remarkably rapid in the first years of life – and infants also sleep a greater proportion of the time than anyone else. Since adult studies have shown an important role for sleep in consolidating word learning, we attempted to lay the foundation for the first studies of the role of sleep in infant word learning, using naturalistic exposure through parental book reading with testing for memory for those words in the lab. We compared how well the words were remembered by infants immediately after the reading, or after a 4 hours' gap, during which one group of infants napped and another did not.
Key findings
We found no indication of learning: None of the groups showed signs that they remembered the word to which they were exposed in the book, or could distinguish it from a word they have not heard before. Sleep and delay in testing made no difference to the results.
As regards the 3 objectives:
1) A grant proposal was submitted to the ESRC for which the RPF funds were used to pilot the method. The grant was not awarded.
2) The method was tested, but proved unsatisfactory. If we decide to resubmit a grant on this issue, we will need to pilot the method again.
3) The relationship with the Israeli colleagues was not formalised, as the ESRC grant was not awarded.
As regards the 3 objectives:
1) A grant proposal was submitted to the ESRC for which the RPF funds were used to pilot the method. The grant was not awarded.
2) The method was tested, but proved unsatisfactory. If we decide to resubmit a grant on this issue, we will need to pilot the method again.
3) The relationship with the Israeli colleagues was not formalised, as the ESRC grant was not awarded.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/08/14 → 31/07/15 |
Keywords
- P Philology. Linguistics
- BF Psychology