Space, time, the body, and word learning

The dynamics of attention and memory processes are fundamentally spatial. Research in infants, children, and adults demonstrate that spatially cued attention, spatially indexed memories, and the bodily basis of orienting, all contribute to building coherent representations of the world. This thesis presents a first look at how these processes function during the acquisition of names for objects. A proposal is presented outlining how the locations of objects and the locations of learners organize attention and memories, suggesting that the spatial consistency of both should support the learning of object-names. Four studies are presented that directly investigate key components of this spatial consistency proposal. The first study shows that consistent object locations organize where to look and what is remembered, promoting word learning in infants. The second study links these processes to the motor basis of attentional orienting, specifically, posture, and shows that infants' postural position is tied to the memories of objects. The third study extends these results, and provides evidence that motor movements, specifically postural shifts, affect infants' attention and learning processes. The final study in the set examines if these processes are present in more experienced word learners. Together, the findings presented in this thesis support the idea that the spatial properties of attention and memory govern how children learn object-names, and highlight the importance of understanding the mechanisms that drive word-learning grounded in the body and spatial contexts of the developing child.