The Effects of Deictic Pointing in Word Learning

Previous research suggested that eye gaze as a social cue plays a crucial role in early word learning. In light of this, we investigated another kind of embodied social cue, pointing, and asked how it relates to word learning in young children as it is ubiquitous in day – to – day parentchild interactions. Parents were asked to narrate a story book displayed on a computer screen. Each page of the story contains the pictures of multiple objects and the novel spoken names of those objects were introduced during the narration. Word learning was measured at the end of the story. The three learning conditions were, (1) pointing to the correct object while labeling it, (2) no pointing, and (3) general pointing to the center of the screen but not to a specific object. The results showed embodied pointing actions significantly increase word learning. Moreover, a touch screen panel placed over the computer screen was used to record the time and location of each pointing action. We developed and implemented various approaches to measure the spatial and temporal correlations of parental speech and pointing actions. The results of detailed analyses suggest that exact synchrony and degree of overlap of speech and pointing streams of action are not directly relevant to learning efficiency. Overall, this work suggests both that social cues, such as pointing, are embedded in a system of correlations relating the speech stream to the physical world of objects and events and that the human word-learning system is robust.