The Effects of Joint Attention Contexts on Adult Novel Word Learning

Joint attention is influential in infant language acquisition, however less is known of the effects of interactive conditions in adult processing and learning. With adults, digital avatar-to-human interactive tasks have resulted in increased image recognition (Kim & Mundy, 2011) and human-to-human experiments have demonstrated joint attention to significantly impact L2 word learning (Hirotani et al., under revision). The aim of the current study was to validate Hirotani et al.’s (under revision) conclusions using a digital interactive paradigm as opposed to as live, face-to-face design. Nine subjects interacted with a video participant in 3 separate learning blocks consisting of 40 picture-pseudoword pairs in four joint attention contexts (responding, initiating, simultaneous and non). Results indicated no performance difference across blocks or conditions and no interaction effect. Further testing is required to determine whether interactive digital environments can also play an implicit role in the effectiveness of joint attention in adult lexical development.