Does young children’s interest in categories influence their familiar word–object recognition?

Abstract Over the first 2 years, children learn to recognize many familiar objects when hearing its label. Nonetheless, recognition is influenced by factors such as category size, frequency, and salience. Since a child’s individual interests influence word learning , we hypothesized that they might also modulate attention during recognition. Twenty-two- to thirty-nine-month-old typically developing German children’s familiar word–object recognition was measured in an intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Category interest was assessed via pupillary arousal. Additionally, interest in and familiarity with a category and category size were obtained from parents. Children looked longer to the labelled object, and target looking increased with age and relative category size, while speed of recognition increased with age. Interest had a small effect on speed of recognition but not on recognition accuracy. Thus, interests seem to influence learning and retention and play a more nuanced role in processing of already established knowledge.