We present a neural network model of referent identification in a preferential looking task. The inputs are visual representations of pairs of objects concurrent with unfolding sequences of phonemes identifying the target object. The model is trained to output the semantic representation of the target object and to suppress the semantic representation of the distractor object. Referent identification is achieved in the model based only on bottom-up processing. The training set uses a lexicon of 200 words and their visual and semantic referents, reported by parents as typically known by toddlers. The phonological, visual and semantic representations are derived from real corpora. The model successfully replicates experimental evidence that phonological, perceptual and categorical relationships between target and distractor modulate the temporal pattern of visual attention. In particular, the network captures early effects of phonological similarity, followed by later effects of semantic similarity on referent identification.

Visual world studies show that upon hearing a word in a target-absent visual context containing related and unrelated items,toddlers and adults briefly direct their gaze towards phonolog-ically related items, before shifting towards semantically andvisually related ones. We present a neural network model thatprocesses dynamic unfolding phonological representations andmaps them to static internal semantic and visual representa-tions. The model, trained on representations derived from realcorpora, simulates this early phonological over semantic/visualpreference. Our results support the hypothesis that incremen-tal unfolding of a spoken word is in itself sufficient to ac-count for the transient preference for phonological competi-tors over both unrelated and semantically and visually relatedones. Phonological representations mapped dynamically in abottom-up fashion to semantic-visual representations capturethe early phonological preference effects reported in a visualworld task. The semantic-visual preference observed later insuch a trial does not require top-down feedback from a seman-tic or visual system.