We have a number of projects examining the learning processes that underlie language learning. Children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years are currently being recruited. http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/infantlearning/Welcome.html PI: Jenny Saffran, PhD Keywords: Infant …
Jenny Saffran
Jenny Saffran, PhD – Slide of the Week
Title: Toddlers make use of speaker’s genders while listening to words Legend: Toddlers viewed pairs of familiar objects selected to be prototypically male or female. As they listened to words referring to these objects, we …
New study finds toddlers incorporate gender into their language processing
Our understanding of language relies on more than just the spoken word. A myriad of external cues, like nonverbal signals and a person’s characteristics, contribute to how we understand and process language as we speak and communicate with others.
Little Listeners Project
We are looking for children to participate in research on the UW-Madison campus about how toddlers learn language. We are looking for typically developing children 18-24 months old and children with diagnosed or suspected ASD …
Jenny Saffran, PhD – Slide of the Week
How do learners gather new information during word learning? One possibility is that learners selectively sample items that help them reduce uncertainty about new word meanings.
When research goes remote: adapting studies in the face of COVID-19
By Peter Jurich, Waisman Science Writer With every challenge comes new opportunities. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, much of the country went on lock-down with only essential services and operations …
Jenny Saffran, PhD – Slide of the Week
Eye-gaze methods offer numerous advantages for studying cognitive processes in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but data loss may threaten the validity and generalizability of results. Some eye-gaze systems may be more vulnerable to data loss than others, but to our knowledge, this issue has not been empirically investigated. In the current study, we asked whether automatic eye-tracking and manual gaze coding produce different rates of data loss or different results in a group of 51 toddlers with ASD.
Expecting to learn: Language acquisition in toddlers improved by predictable situations
In an upcoming study in Current Biology, published online Aug. 16, researchers at the Arizona State University Department of Psychology and the Waisman Center report a factor that is important for language learning in children: the predictability of the learning environment.
Jenny Saffran, PhD – Slide of the Week
Children use the presence of familiar objects with known names to identify the correct referents of novel words. In natural environments, objects vary widely in salience. The presence of familiar objects may sometimes hinder rather than help word learning.
Here is how a cat can hinder children learning new words
Say you are shown an apple, a banana and a fruit you have never seen before. Then you are asked to pick the “pifo.” Which fruit would you choose? Chances are you would select the novel fruit.