Word Learning

A technical session on autistic children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

A talk on autistic children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

Both children and adults can use sophisticated pragmatic inferences to acquire word meanings. An intriguing hypothesis is that words …

A poster on autistic children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

A talk on typically developing children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

A poster on typically developing children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

A talk on typically developing children’s encoding and retrieval of pragmatically inferred words.

How does the need to make pragmatic inferences to map words impact novel word meaning memory? In this collection of projects, we examine how the cognitive and neural basis of theory of mind modulate word learning outcomes in neurotypical and autistic adults and children, and how and why this may differ between individuals and groups. Major contributions: Empirically demonstrate stronger retention of pragmatically inferred over directly mapped words in neurotypical adults, older typically developing children, and a sub-group of autistic children, and a lack of it in younger typically developing children and a subgroup of autistic children; explore a significant modulating effect of theory of mind skills via both behavioral correlations and priming; conceptualize, design, program, and pilot neuro-imaging extensions of this project in neurotypical and autistic adults using fMRI (BOLD activation, MVPA, and functional connectivity) and EEG (pseudo-hyperscanning)