Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

There are conflicting accounts of how context variability affects childrens word learning. In some instances, toddlers andpreschoolers word learning appears sensitive to context changes (e.g., Goldenberg & Sandhofer, 2013; Vlach & Sandhofer,2011). In other cases, however, children show learning independent of context variability (e.g., Akhtar, 2005). There mayalso be instances where context variability promotes label retention (Twomey, Ma, & Westermann, 2017). Inconsistentfindings in this literature could be the result of task demands. Context dependencies may emerge when tasks are moredifficult, because children are unable to suppress irrelevant context features and focus on relevant inputs, which are factorsthat can contribute to the strength of context effects (Smith & Vela, 2001). We explored potential context effects in wordand fact learning using a design intended to reduce task load. Under these conditions, fact learning was affected by contextvariability, but word learning was not.