Past studies have shown that adult listeners can classify gender from children’s speech – long before anatomical differences between the sexes emerge. This suggests that gender differences in speaking style are learned early in life through socialization. Yet, no study to date has asked whether children also perceive gender cues in child speech. In Study 1, we found that 3.5- to 6-year-olds were able to detect gender from their age-matched peers’ speech, and that their performance was moderated by parents’ gender attitudes. In Study 2, we examine whether the effect of parental socialization is mirrored in children's production. We predicted that how easy children's gender can be perceived from their speech is moderated by parents’ gender attitudes. Our findings support our prediction. Taken together, our results demonstrate that sensitivity to gender cues emerges early in life, and that parental socialization contributes to the development of both gendered speech perception and production.

It Starts at Home: The Role of Parental Socialization on the Development of Gendered Speech

Past studies have revealed that language experience impacts children’s vocabulary development. For example, bilingual children tend to have smaller vocabularies than monolingual children in each of their languages. However, it is unclear whether routine exposure to multiple accents also affects children’s vocabulary growth. Here, using standardized vocabulary assessments, we compared the reported vocabulary sizes of 11- to 34-month-old monolingual and bilingual children (N = 2881) who had various degrees of accent exposure. Our results show that routine exposure to multiple accents, regardless of accent type, does not negatively impact vocabulary development. Our findings suggest that children are well-equipped to handle language variation in their input.

Effects of Accent Exposure on Monolingual and Bilingual Children’s Early Vocabulary Development

Adults are more accurate at identifying own- than other-accented talkers (e.g., Stevenage, 2012). However, no study to date has examined when the Other Accent Effect (OAE) first emerges. Here, we use a voice line-up task to test 6- to 12-year-olds (N=59) on their ability to recognize own- (Canadian English) and other-accented (Japanese- or Mandarin-accented English) talkers. Own-accented talkers (M=0.77) were recognized better than other-accented talkers (M=0.61), p<.005. No effect of age was observed. This indicates the OAE is well-entrenched by 6 years of age. Interestingly, all children tended to evaluate other-accented talkers negatively, but these biases did not predict the strength of the OAE, suggesting that a factor other than social biases drives the effect (Yu et al., 2021). To further understand the underlying mechanisms of the OAE, we are currently testing children in the same line-up task on their ability to recognize Southern American and Australian English talkers.

The Emergence of the Other Accent Effect in Talker Recognition

Child speech deviates from adult speech in predictable ways. Are listeners who routinely interact with children implicitly aware of these systematic deviations, and thereby better at comprehending children? In Experiment 1, we explore this possibility by testing three types of participants with variable experience interacting with children: undergraduates with minimal experience with children (N=48), mothers of young children (N=48), and early childcare educators (N=36). Participants transcribed single-word utterances produced by the same set of children at 2.5-, 4-, and 5.5-years-old. In Experiment 2, mothers (N=50) completed a similar transcription task that featured speech by their own, and another, 2.5-year-old child. Participants performed similarly regardless of their experience with children, while mothers demonstrated a Familiar Talker Advantage with their own child’s speech. Our findings suggest that while experience with children may not facilitate improved comprehension of child speech in general, it may lead to enhanced comprehension of those children in particular.

Do you speak 'kid'? The role of experience in comprehending child speech

This study investigated whether positive or negative media exposure to non-local accents influences children’s language attitudes of those accents. Following exposure to heroic or villainous cartoon characters with either a regional (British; Experiment 1, N=89) or non-native (Experiment 2, N=84) accents, children were tested on a friend preference task, during which they selected—given a choice between a locally-accented child and a British-accented (Experiment 1) or Korean-accented (Experiment 2) child—which one they wanted to be friends with. Consistent with previous literature, children selected native-accented speakers at above chance rates, both when paired with British- (M=55%, β=0.25, p=0.03) and Korean-accented children (M=86%, β=2.63, p<.001). There was no evidence that exposure to heroic vs. villainous characters influenced children’s preferences for native-accented children in either experiment. Follow-up work is investigating whether protracted exposure to evil/heroic characters with non-local accents influences children’s evaluations to non-local varieties across a wider range of tasks.

The influence of media exposure on children’s evaluations of non-local accents

Early vocabulary development is heavily influenced by children’s language environment. For example, higher SES children who have frequent and rich interactions with caregivers tend to have larger vocabulary size than lower SES children who have less stable home environment (e.g., Hoff & Naigles, 2002). Because of the recent pandemic, most Canadian children have experienced dramatic changes to their day-to-day life. In the current study, we ask whether the pandemic environment affects children’s vocabulary growth. We compare the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) scores of 11- to 34-month-olds collected before (N=1365) and after (N=301) the onset of COVID-19. Preliminary results show that CDI scores collected for toddlers after the pandemic onset are significantly lower than those collected before. We will continue to collect additional CDI data, and examine how factors such as screen time, reading time, SES, and number of people the child has regular interaction with mediate children’s vocabulary size.

Vocabulary Growth in Infancy and Toddlerhood: The Impact of COVID-19

Children use accent to categorize speakers as in-group or out-group members (i.e., fellow speakers of language variety X or some other variety). This study tested how much 3- to 5-year-old children (N=159) consider both grammaticality and accent when categorizing speakers. After interacting with a native or non-native experimenter whose speech contained grammatical errors (or not), children completed a cultural categorization task, where they were asked where the experimenter likely grew up (a familiar- or unfamiliar-looking dwelling), as well as a resource allocation task, where children could share stickers with the experimenter. Results showed that children relied primarily on accent when deciding where the experimenter grew up, being more likely to associate native speakers with familiar dwellings than non-native speakers. However, children shared stickers with all speakers equally. The latter result contrasts with previous work using non-interactive paradigms, and may indicate that live interactions foster more favorable perceptions of non-native speakers.

‘Hello! *What your name?’ Children’s evaluations of ungrammatical speakers after live interaction

Poster Session 3 

poster

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society will take place in Sydney, Australia as a modified hybrid conference. Presentations from the main-session room will be live-streamed every day for all events. This will include all invited talks and award sessions. Recordings of all CogSci 2023 sessions will be made available for on-demand viewing after the conference.<br>
The in-person component will be held at the International Convention Centre Sydney at Darling Harbour. The Conference will take place Wednesday July 26th – Saturday July 29th, 2023 (Wednesday, July 26th is the Workshops Day).

Join us!

<br>[**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/COgSci-PAAG-V2.pdf)
<br>[**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://online.fliphtml5.com/ebtyf/mswz/)
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#### **CogSci 2023 Program Book**
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CogSci 2023

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

Poster Session 1


**For a full list of posters in this session, click the See All link on the right side of the page.**

Poster Session 1 -  E: Linguistics

### Looking for Cogsci 2023? Please [click here](https://underline.io/events/405/reception) to switch to 2023 edition.


**Dear Colleagues,**

Welcome to the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society! 

This year’s conference brings together the latest research from all Cognitive Science and also highlights this year’s theme **Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds.** 

The program features four plenary speakers: Friederike Range (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), Julia Fischer (University of Göttingen), and Erich Jarvis (The Rockefeller University). The keynotes and invited symposia showcase the broad spectrum of ideas that encompass the conference theme of comparative cognition. 

Further, the program includes the Rumelhart Prize keynote presentation by Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago), and symposia to celebrate the winner of the Elman Prize: Wei Ji Ma (New York University), the Heineken Award winner Robert Zatorre (McGill University), and the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes session.

The program committee for CogSci 2021 received 1,025 submissions, including 710 full papers, 275 member abstracts, 8 publication-based talks, as well as 15 proposals for symposia, and 17 for workshops and tutorials. After a rigorous review process, the committee selected 152 papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings (14.8%), 332 papers for poster presentation and inclusion in the proceedings (32.4%), and 175 papers for poster presentation with inclusion of abstracts in the proceedings (17.1%) We also selected 275 submitted member abstracts. In addition, we accepted 6 publication-based talks, 12 symposia, and 9 workshops and tutorials to make for an exciting and inclusive program.

We hope that you enjoy the conference this year!<br><br>

**Your Program Chairs,**
![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/99984908caba5e6453e5fc5ba34f3507.jpg)

**Learn more about the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub at the University of Vienna, hosts of CogSci 2021**

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To review the proceedings for the conference or review the searchable program, please visit the [website](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/program/).


CogSci 2021

The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education. The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

**Date: **Wednesday, July 28, 2021<br>
**Time: **17:20 CEST - 19:00 CEST  <br><br>
**Session Description: **<br>Review the posters you are interested in, watch the videos, and even leave messages for the authors in the Q&A section before joining the poster presenters and exhibitors in Gather.town for live discussion. <br><br>
**For a full list of posters in this session, click the See All link on the right side of the page.**

Elizabeth Johnson

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