Poster #110 - Maternal mind-reading ability relates to the input quality facilitating word learning

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

It’s been demonstrated that parental input quality, that is, how effectively the caregiver conveys word meaning to the young learner using the immediate social and visual context, is a unique predictor of the child’s vocabulary growth above and beyond socioeconomic status of the family and the quantity of input (Cartmill et al., 2013). This finding implied that there are individual differences among caregivers in their use of social and visual context when they introduce a word to their child: some are effective while others are not. The present study explored potential factors that may contribute to these individual differences in effectively utilizing relevant cues for their 14-20-month-old toddlers. We hypothesized that differences in parental mind-reading abilities and sensitivity to others’ emotional states might be key factors that can allow parents to be effective in utilizing social and visual cues to make their referential intention clearly conveyed to their young learners of a language.

To test this idea, 44 dyads of 30-minute interactions between 14-to-20-month-old toddlers and their mothers were video-recorded in their homes with a set of toys, materials, and picture books provided. From these, we coded maternal mind-mindedness (Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley, & Tuckey, 2001) and computed the frequency of appropriate mind-related comments out of the mother’s total utterance. We also extracted 40-second vignettes (15 per dyad), removed the audio but replaced the target word utterance with a beep sound. These vignettes were presented to 300 college students whose task was to guess what the word might be using only the visual/social context provided in the video. The inferential accuracy of the target words was used as a measure of the maternal referential transparency (i.e., input quality, Gillette, Gleitman, Gleitman, & Lederer, 1999). Mothers also participated in an experiment where their empathic accuracy was assessed by examining their real-time sensitivity to another person’s changing emotional states, using a paradigm developed by Zaki, Bolger, and Ochsner (2008).

Preliminary analyses of correlations among the three variables showed a positive association between the quality of input and maternal mind-mindedness (r = .27, p = .041, see Figure 1). However, individual differences in maternal empathic accuracy did not show any associations with the input quality (r = .08, p = .297). We also performed a one-way ANOVA comparing mothers based on their maternal mind-mindedness scores. Those mothers who scored upper 30 percentile in maternal mind-mindedness received input quality score on average 43.88 (SD=11.16, n=14), whereas those who scored lower than 30 percentile received 34.44 (SD=12.35, n=13), F(1, 26)=4.36, p=.047, see Figure 2). These suggest that mothers who are better at reading their child’s mind provide better clues for word meaning, effectively utilizing immediate visual/social context available. Further data collection is currently underway to ultimately test whether maternal mind-mindedness is indeed a unique predictor of input quality above and beyond other demographic factors.

Authors

• Jieun Jeong, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
  Presenting Author

• Youngon Choi, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yunji Kim, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jisoo Kim, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
  Non-Presenting Author