Developmental changes in phonological and semantic competition during spoken word recognition

Spoken word-recognition is a foundational skill in child language development; the organization and activation of phonological and semantic competitors develops which in turn impacts word recognition. One of the factors impacting spoken word recognition is the ability to resolve lexical competition. The current study first examines how the time-course of lexical activation changes through development, and second, whether children attend more to targets when competitors are visually present or not. To date, 25 children between ages 3–7 who began acquiring French from birth participated in a visual world eye-tracking paradigm. Children were presented with 4 images, each representing a different French word. Images were either presented with both a phonological (e.g., baleine) and semantic (e.g., cerise) competitor of the audio stimuli (e.g., banana) or the audio stimuli had no relation to the competitor images (e.g., épée). Primary analysis reveals that older children look more to the target than younger children [F(2,22) = 3.8, p =.04] and that the presence of competitors does not impact target recognition [F(1,18) = 0.03, p =.87]. Such findings imply that children improve in their abilities to efficiently recognize words with age but are not affected by the visual presence of lexical competitors.