The document outlines next steps and hypotheses for a study investigating how tactile and touch cues influence infants' ability to learn novel words for body parts. It plans to complete testing and analysis of subjects ages 4-6 months and 9-10 months to determine if more subjects are needed. It also plans a control experiment without exposure to determine what drives longer looking to body part videos. The study aims to see if infants receiving consistent speech+touch exposure during training map words better than those receiving inconsistent exposure. It describes the subjects, design, stimuli, and procedure which exposes infants to speech streams paired with touch to target words referring to body parts, then tests their word learning using a preferential looking procedure.

1. ≠
Next
steps
• Complete
tes-ng
and
analysis
of
the
target
number
of
subjects
for
4-­‐6
month
olds
and
9-­‐10
month
olds,
evaluate
if
more
subjects
needed
to
increase
power
• Control
experiment
–
no
exposure
or
speech
stream
but
no
touch
exposure
–
to
determine
if
longer
looking
to
body
part
videos
is
due
to
exposure
manipula-on,
a
preference
for
videos
about
people
(or
parts
of
people),
or
a
preference
for
familiar
objects
In
what
ways
do
tac-le,
touch,
cues
influence
infants'
ability
to
learn
novel
words
for
body
parts?
6-­‐month-­‐olds
succeed
in
word
segmenta-on
when
a
target
word
was
at
the
beginning
or
end
of
the
sentence
(Johnson,
Seidl,
&
Tyler,
2014)
• Word
learning
and
word
comprehension
–
map
a
sound
paNern
to
the
world
3-­‐
to
4-­‐month-­‐olds
begin
to
develop
word
comprehension
skills:
crea-ng
representa-ons
of
events,
remembering
sound
paNerns
of
words,
and
linking
auditory
informa-on
with
visual
input
6-­‐month-­‐olds
show
the
beginnings
of
word
comprehension:
mommy,
daddy,
parts
of
the
body,
foods
(Bergelson
&
Swingley,
2012;
Tincoff
&
Jusczyk,
1999;
Tincoff
&
Jusczyk,
2012)
• Touch
First
sensory
system
to
develop
in
utero;
essen-al
for
infant
development
(Field,
2001)
Touch
on
4.5-­‐month-­‐olds'
body
(elbow
or
knee)
helps
infants
segment
novel
words
from
a
fluid
speech
stream
(Seidl,
Tincoff,
Baker,
&
Cris-a,
2014)
In
the
lab,
infants
look
more
o[en
at
a
loca-on
on
their
body
when
their
caregiver
is
teaching
a
nonsense
word
for
that
body
part
and
touching
that
body
part
(Tincoff,
Seidl,
Buckley,
Wojcik,
&
Cris-a,
under
review)
Hypotheses:
• If
caregiver
touch
is
relevant
for
infants’
ini-al
understanding
of
words,
then
infants
who
receive
consistent
speech+touch
exposure
should
segment
and
map
the
word
to
a
referent
compared
to
infants
who
receive
inconsistent
speech+touch
exposure.
• If
caregiver
touch
is
not
relevant,
or
distrac-ng,
for
early
word
learning,
then
there
should
be
no
difference
in
infants'
word
mapping
for
the
different
speech+touch
exposure
condi-ons.
Subjects
Infants
were
recruited
from
the
LafayeNe,
Indiana
region
and
the
experimental
sessions
were
conducted
in
the
Infant
Speech
Lab
in
the
Dept.
of
Speech,
Language,
and
Hearing
Sciences
at
Purdue
University
• 4-­‐6
month
olds
target
n=
24;
completed
:
14
M
and
9
F,
mean
age:
5.01
mos
• 9-­‐10
month
olds
target
n=
24;
completed:
4
M
and
2
F,
mean
age:
10.02
mos
Design,
S-muli,
and
Procedure
Speech+Touch
Exposure
Phase
Word
Learning
Tes-ng
Phase:
Preferen-al
Looking
Procedure
Subjects
tested
for
learning
of
Always
target
or
One
Touch
target
The
Effect
of
Touch
on
Infant
Word
Learning
Sarah
Och
and
Haley
Tighe,
Faculty
Sponsor:
Ruth
Tincoff
in
collabora-on
with
Amanda
Seidl
and
Rana
Abu-­‐Zhaya,
Purdue
University
Acknowledgments
Thank
you
to
the
families
who
have
par-cipated
in
the
research,
to
the
community
sites
that
provided
recrui-ng
opportuni-es,
and
the
Purdue
students
who
assisted
with
data
collec-on.
This
research
was
supported
by
Purdue
University,
the
Bucknell
Program
for
Undergraduate
Research,
and
the
Bucknell
Psychology
Department.
Figure
1.
Experimenter
touches
infant's
elbow
during
the
exposure
phase.
570
–
577
–
1828
bucknel.edu/BabyLab
"dobita"
Figure
2.
SampleTest
trial
for
3-­‐syllable
target
"dobita”
that
was
paired
with
Always
touch
to
the
infant's
elbow
during
exposure
Introduc-on
Method
Preliminary
Results
Speech:
listen
to
speech
stream
(24
-mes)
gabigamunepokutanedokulepogadonemutaledobitapomubileku
Touch:
experimenter
cued
to
touch
infants'
elbow
or
knee
in
-ming
with
target
3-­‐syllable
strings
(aka
"words")
Speech+Touch
• Always
Touch
Word:
body
part
touched
every
-me
3-­‐syllable
string
presented
(e.g.,
…dobita…)
• One
Touch
Word:
body
part
touched
one
-me
when
3-­‐syllable
string
presented
(e.g.,
…
lepoga…);
23
-mes
on
other
syllables
Figure
3.
Example
of
coding
direc-on
(le[
or
right)
and
dura-on
(in
frames)
of
infants'
looks.
Coders
at
Bucknell
and
Purdue
both
used
Supercoder.
Coders
were
blind
to
the
condi-on
and
audio
was
off.
A
training
sample
of
subjects
showed
a
.94
intercoder
correla-on.
Silent
Preview
trials
(2)
Silent
Salience
trials
(2)
Test
trials
(4)
Target
word
"dobita"
or
"lepoga"
Novel
trisyllable
"bipota"(bigamunepokutane)
• Word
segmenta-on—the
ability
to
recognize
a
paNern
of
speech
sounds
4-­‐
to
5-­‐month-­‐olds
recognize
the
sound
paNern
of
their
name
(Mandel,
Jusczyk,
&
Pisoni,
1995)
7-­‐
to
8-­‐month-­‐olds
recognize
other
frequently
occurring
word
forms
(Saffran,
Aslin,
&
Newport,
1996)
Four-­‐
to
six-­‐month-­‐olds
(n=11)
tested
for
mapping
Always
trisyllable
to
elbow/knee
• Looked
more
to
elbow/knee
video
during
Silent
Salience
• Show
a
tendency
to
look
more
at
elbow/
knee
video
on
test
trials
• Show
a
tendency
for
no
differences
between
trials
Four-­‐
to
six-­‐month-­‐olds
(n=12)
tested
for
mapping
One
trisyllable
to
elbow/knee
• Show
a
tendency
to
look
more
at
elbow/
knee
video
but
none
of
the
differences
are
sta-s-cally
significant
• Show
a
tendency
for
no
differences
between
trials
References
Bergelson,
E.,
&
Swingley,
D.
(2012).
At
6
to
9
months,
human
infants
know
the
meanings
of
many
common
nouns.
Proceedings
of
the
Na-onal
Academy
of
Sciences,
109,
3253–3258.
Johnson,
E.
K.,
Seidl,
A.,
&
Tyler,
M.
(2014).
The
edge
factor
in
early
word
segmenta-on:
uNerance-­‐level
prosody
enables
word
form
extrac-on
by
6-­‐month-­‐olds.
PLoS
One,
1–14.
Mandel,
D.,
Jusczyk,
P.
W.,
&
Pisoni,
D.
(1995).
Infants’
with
recogni-on
of
the
sound
paNerns
of
their
own
names.
Psychological
Science,
6,
315-­‐318.
Seidl,
A.,
Tincoff,
R.,
Baker,
C.,
&
Cris-a,
A.
(2014).
Why
the
body
comes
first:
effects
of
experimenter
touch
on
infants’
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finding.
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Science,
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155-­‐164.
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R.,
&
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E.
(1996).
Sta-s-cal
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Buckley,
L.,
Wojcik,
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&
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A.
(under
review).
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sync
speech
and
touch
cues
that
highlight
word-­‐to-­‐world
mappings.
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Development.
Tincoff,
R.
&
Jusczyk,
P.W.
(1999).
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beginnings
of
word
comprehension
in
6-­‐month
olds.
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10(2),
172-­‐175.
Tincoff,
R.,
&
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P.
W.
(2012).
Six-­‐month-­‐olds
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parts
of
the
body.
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432-­‐444.