Crespo, K. & Kaushanskaya, M.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
The present study examined the effect of speaker variability on cross-situational word learning in monolingual and bilingual children via an eye-tracking paradigm. Thirty-nine monolinguals and 40 Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 4-7 were recruited. Children learned novel word-referent mappings in two different conditions: a single speaker condition, where children were exposed to one female speaker; and a multiple speaker condition, where children were exposed to 10 different female speakers. Results suggest that children can accommodate multiple speakers in a naturalistic, implicit word-learning task. Group membership (monolingual/bilingual) was not a significant predictor of performance in either condition, suggesting that language experience may not matter for such a robust learning mechanism. An individual-differences approach was used to examine the role of sustained attention in word learning performance. Children with better sustained attention performed similarly in the single and multiple speaker condition, but children with poorer sustained attention performed better in the multiple than the single speaker condition. These results suggest that variability in the input may be more beneficial for children with low sustained attention skills. Together, the findings point to the importance of cognitive skills, rather than language experience, in shaping children?s learning from variable input.