# Infant attention in the context of language

> **NIH NIH F32** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $1

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 It is well established that language is fundamentally interwoven with human cognition. Even before infants
understand the meaning of a single word, listening to language supports cognitive processes such as rule learning
(Ferguson & Lew-Williams, 2016) and category formation (e.g., Balaban & Waxman, 1997; Ferry, Hepos & Waxman,
2010; Fulkerson & Waxman, 2007). Yet the mechanisms through which language exerts these effects in infancy are not
well understood. The aim of the current proposal is to identify the potential visual attentional mechanisms that might
underlie the effects of language on cognition, across two visual tasks (object comparison and object categorization),
across 2 developmental time points (5 and 10-months), and across two language modalities (spoken and signed language).
 In order to understand how language affects infant cognitive processes, the proposed studies will use eye-tracking to
explore visual indices such as pupil dilation and fixation patterns that have previously been of interest to vision
researchers but unexplored by language researchers. This set of studies will ask how language organizes attention, and
which individual differences in attention are most predictive of learning outcomes. Two experimental paradigms will be
used: one that requires infants to encode individual objects and detect when they have changed, and one that requires
learning object categories. Studies within each series will first examine visual measures in the absence of language, and
will then compare the influence of language vs. non-linguistic cues. A final study will ask how the observed effects
translate across language modality by testing how infants respond to seeing sign language, rather than hearing spoken
language.
 This research will advance the field's understanding of how language affects attention and cognition in infancy.
Moreover, the studies are designed to leverage individual differences in infant attention. A clearer understanding of
normative attention patterns in the infant years will serve as a springboard for identifying targeted interventions with long-
term benefits for infants and young children at risk for attention disorders and ASD. Finally, studying how infants allocate
their attention in the context of seeing sign language will provide much needed basic research on the processes that
underlie language development in children who are born deaf or hard of hearing due to chronic ear infections.
 This research will also provide the applicant with critical training to advance her academic career. This includes
methodological training in infant eye tracking methodology and analysis techniques, as well as theoretical training in
visual attention processes – a topic her graduate training did not include. Finally, the proposed experiments provide a clear
extension of her graduate research program which focused on how non-verbal communicative cues (gestures) influence
learning in children. By ext...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9971559
- **Project number:** 5F32HD095580-03
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Miriam Alana Novack
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2020-08-02

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9971559

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9971559, Infant attention in the context of language (5F32HD095580-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9971559. Licensed CC0.

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