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Effects of emotional cues on novel word learning in typically developing children in relation to broader autism traits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2021

Melina J WEST Open the ORCID record for Melina J WEST [Opens in a new window] ,
Anthony J ANGWIN ,
David A COPLAND ,
Wendy L ARNOTT  and
Nicole L NELSON
Melina J WEST*
Affiliation:
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Anthony J ANGWIN
Affiliation:
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
David A COPLAND
Affiliation:
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia University of Queensland Center for Clinical Research, Brisbane, Australia
Wendy L ARNOTT
Affiliation:
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Nicole L NELSON
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Melina J West Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, U-1020, Storrs CT USA 06269. E-mail: [email protected];
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Abstract

Emotion can influence various cognitive processes. Communication with children often involves exaggerated emotional expressions and emotive language. Children with autism spectrum disorder often show a reduced tendency to attend to emotional information. Typically developing children aged 7 to 9 years who varied in their level of autism-like traits learned the nonsense word names of nine novel toys, which were presented with either happy, fearful, or neutral emotional cues. Emotional cues had no influence on word recognition or recall performance. Eye-tracking data showed differences in visual attention depending on the type of emotional cues and level of autism-like traits. The findings suggest that the influence of emotion on attention during word learning differs according to whether the children have lower or higher levels of autism-like traits, but this influence does not affect word learning outcomes.

Keywords

emotionword learninglanguagebroader autism phenotype
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , May 2022 , pp. 503 - 521
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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