Structural priming in Spanish as evidence of implicit learning.

This study uses a structural priming technique with young Spanish speakers to test whether exposure to a rare syntactic form in Spanish (fue-passive) would increase the production and comprehension of that form. In Study 1, 14 six-year-old Spanish speakers described pictures of transitive scenes. This baseline study revealed that fue-passives were virtually non-existent in children's spontaneous speech. Using the priming technique in Study 2, an additional 56 Spanish-speaking children were exposed to fue-passive or active picture descriptions; we varied whether children repeated the modeled form. With repetition, production of fue-passives increased past baseline usage. When not asked to repeat, comprehension and production of fue-passives was no different than chance. Results extend the existing literature by experimentally testing input effects on the production and comprehension of infrequently used constructions, further corroborating the relation between input frequency and language skill. Findings are consistent with the view that an implicit learning mechanism guides language learning.

Young Children's Attention to What's Going On: Cultural Differences.

This chapter examines children' attention to surrounding events in which they are not directly involved, a way of learning that fits with the cultural approach of Learning by Observing and Pitching In. Research in instructional settings has found that attention to surrounding events is more common among Indigenous Guatemalan Mayan and some US Mexican-heritage children than among middle-class children from several ethnic backgrounds. We examine this phenomenon in a quasi-naturalistic setting to see if the cultural variation in young children's attention to surrounding events in which they were not directly involved extends beyond instructional settings. During a home visit focused on their younger sibling, 19 Guatemalan Mayan and 18 middle-class European American 3- to 5-year olds were nearby but not addressed, as their mother helped their toddler sibling operate novel objects. The Guatemalan Mayan children more frequently attended to this nearby interaction and other third-party activities, whereas the middle-class European American children more often attended to their own activities in which they were directly involved or they fussed or showed off. The results support the idea that in some Indigenous communities of the Americas where young children are included in a broad range of family and community endeavors, children may be especially inclined to attend to ongoing events, even if they are not directly involved or addressed, compared to European American children whose families have extensive experience in Western school ways.

Toddlers' imitative learning in interactive and observational contexts: the role of age and familiarity of the model.

Three experiments examined the effects of age and familiarity of a model on toddlers' imitative learning in observational contexts (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and interactive contexts (Experiments 2 and 3). Experiment 1 (N=112 18-month-old toddlers) varied the age (child vs. adult) and long-term familiarity (kin vs. stranger) of the person who modeled the novel actions. Experiment 2 (N=48 18-month-olds and 48 24-month-olds) and Experiment 3 (N=48 24-month-olds) varied short-term familiarity with the model (some or none) and learning context (interactive or observational). The most striking findings were that toddlers were able to learn a new action from observing completely unfamiliar strangers who did not address them and were far less likely to imitate an unfamiliar model who directly interacted with them. These studies highlight the robustness of toddlers' observational learning and reveal limitations of learning from unfamiliar models in interactive contexts.

Third-party social interaction and word learning from video.

In previous studies, very young children have learned words while "overhearing" a conversation, yet they have had trouble learning words from a person on video. In Study 1, 64 toddlers (mean age=29.8 months) viewed an object-labeling demonstration in 1 of 4 conditions. In 2, the speaker (present or on video) directly addressed the child, and in 2, the speaker addressed another adult who was present or was with her on video. Study 2 involved 2 follow-up conditions with 32 toddlers (mean age=30.4 months). Across the 2 studies, the results indicated that toddlers learned words best when participating in or observing a reciprocal social interaction with a speaker who was present or on video.

Priming a perspective in Spanish monolingual children: the use of syntactic alternatives.

We used a syntactic priming paradigm to show priming effects for active and passive forms in monolingual Spanish-speaking four- and five-year-olds. In a baseline experiment, we examined children's use of the fue-passive form and found it was virtually non-existent in their speech, although they produced important elements of the form. Children used a more frequent Spanish passive form, the subjectless/se-passive. In a priming experiment, we presented children with drawings described using either active or fue-passive sentences. Children then described novel drawings. Priming was induced for active and passive forms; however, children did not produce the fue-passive provided for them. Instead, children used the subjectless/se-passive and what we term the function-passive, which like the fue-passive, emphasize the patient of the action. We argue that children's use of different passive forms suggests they are sensitive to experimenter's input as it relates to scene interpretation and to syntax.

Syntactic priming in 3- and 4-year-old children: evidence for abstract representations of transitive and dative forms.

The current studies used a syntactic priming paradigm with 3- and 4-year-old children. In Experiment 1, children were asked to describe a series of drawings depicting transitive and dative relations to establish baseline production levels. In Experiment 2, an experimenter described a similar series of drawings using one of two syntactic forms (i.e., active/passive for transitive; double-object/prepositional for dative). Children were then asked to describe pictures identical to those shown in the corresponding baseline procedure. In both transitive and dative conditions, 4-year-old children were more likely to use a particular syntactic form if it had been used by the experimenter. Three-year-old children did not show priming effects, but their production of transitive sentences was higher following transitive primes than in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, an additional group of 3-year-olds participated in a procedure in which they repeated the experimenter's sentences before describing the pictures. This procedure yielded significant priming effects for transitive and dative forms. These results indicate that very young children possess abstract syntactic representations, but that their access to these representations is sensitive to task demands.