Type of object motion facilitates word mapping by preverbal infants.

This study assessed whether specific types of object motion, which predominate in maternal naming to preverbal infants, facilitate word mapping by infants. A total of 60 full-term 8-month-old infants were habituated to two spoken words, /bæf/ and /wem/, synchronous with the handheld motions of a toy dragonfly and a fish or a lamb chop and a squiggly. They were presented in one of four experimental motion conditions-shaking, looming, upward, and sideways-and one all-motion control condition.