[PS-1.16] Seeing & Hearing a Happy Speaker Facilitates Referential Learning in 12-month-olds

Kim, L. 1 , Alison, H. 2 & Robin, P. 1

1 Virginia Tech
2 University of Kentucky

We investigated whether speaker emotion promotes infants' referential learning. Twenty 12-month-olds were tested on an eye-tracking system. During familiarization, a female speaker said "Hi baby" and shifted her gaze toward a referenced object on one side of the screen (ignoring a non-target object on the opposite side). Looking back to the infant, she labeled the referenced object (That's a nice boog!). This process repeated with three utterances. Next, infants saw two test trials in which the referenced object and a non-target object (side was counterbalanced) were presented along with two verbal prompts (i.e., Where is the boog?). Following the happy speaker, infants fixated longer on the non-target object (M = 37.33%) compared to the referenced object (M = 29.44%) during test, indicating a novelty preference (F(1,19) = 9.42, p < .007). In contrast, following the neutral speaker, there were no differences in looking to either object (referenced object: M = 31.99%; other object: M = 32.22%). Moreover, infants looked longer to the mouth of the happy speaker during familiarization. Referential learning was enhanced due to the attention-promoting happy vocal emotion which is line with research on the positive aspects on learning for infant-directed speech.