Abstract:
The overall aim of the present thesis was to investigate the memory traces of irrelevant foreign word-referent links learnt. In both studies four year old children were introduced to a novel toy, which was subsequently linked with a novel linguistic label. Experiment 1 was conducted in order to determine if semantic memory gating was a domain general mechanism of selective word learning. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated for the first time that children who had been taught a foreign word-referent link would retain an episodic memory related to that link. Thus, the findings of Experiment 1 support the notion that semantic gating is a domain general mechanism. Experiment 2 was conducted as an exploratory pilot, with the purpose of developing a novel research paradigm capable of recording neural activity associated with selective word learning. The paradigm combined a standard selective learning comprehension test with Electroencephalography (EEG). The results did not reveal anything conclusive, but did provide a crucial first step in developing a novel EEG paradigm.
