When a word is worth more than a picture: Words lower the threshold for object identification in 3-year-old children.

A large literature shows strong developmental links between early language abilities and later cognitive abilities. We present evidence for one pathway by which language may influence cognition and development: by influencing how visual information is momentarily processed. Children were asked to id...

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Published in:Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Vol. 175; pp. 37 - 48
Main Authors: Vales, Catarina, Smith, Linda B.
Format: Article
Published: Academic Press Inc. Nov2018
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Nov2018
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      pub: Academic Press Inc.
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        131071403
        10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.015
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        atl: When a word is worth more than a picture: Words lower the threshold for object identification in 3-year-old children.
      aug:
        au:
          Vales, Catarina
          Smith, Linda B.
        affil: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
      su:
        Cognitive development
        Language ability
        Optical information processing
        Visual perception in children
        Object recognition (Computer vision)
      sug:
        subj:
          Cognitive development
          Language ability
          Optical information processing
          Visual perception in children
          Object recognition (Computer vision)
      keyword:
        Language
        Language development
        Object recognition
        Vision
        Visual perception
        Language
        Language development
        Object recognition
        Vision
        Visual perception
      ab: A large literature shows strong developmental links between early language abilities and later cognitive abilities. We present evidence for one pathway by which language may influence cognition and development: by influencing how visual information is momentarily processed. Children were asked to identify a target in clutter and either saw a visual preview of the target or heard the basic-level name of the target. We hypothesized that the name of the target should activate category-relevant information and, thus, facilitate more rapid detection of the target amid distractors. Children who heard the name of the target before search were more likely to correctly identify the target at faster speeds of response, a result that supports the idea that words lower the threshold for target identification. This finding has significant implication for understanding the source of vocabulary-mediated individual differences in cognitive achievement and, more generally, for the relation between language and thought.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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