Abstract How speech coding is used for visual material is critical to understanding the link between language and memory development. Using eye-tracking, the present study examined whether the number of syllables of pictured objects’ names, monosyllabic versus multisyllabic, predicts looking time at the stimuli-objects in the context of a memory task, thereby indicating verbal recoding. The children’s (N = 39, ages 5–7 years) language ability was also considered. Younger children (5;1–6;3 years) did not appear to sub-vocally recode the verbal labels of visual stimuli during encoding, whereas older children (6;4–7;3 years) who were already attending elementary school looked longer at objects with multisyllabic labels. Notably, it was primarily the less verbally competent among those children who contributed to the effect. Thus, our results demonstrate, for the first time, that young children’s sub-vocal verbal processing when trying to memorize visual stimuli may be contingent upon verbal competence.

中文翻译：

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字长对 5 至 7 岁儿童图像记忆编码的影响：一项眼动追踪研究

摘要 如何将语音编码用于视觉材料对于理解语言和记忆发展之间的联系至关重要。本研究使用眼动追踪检查了图片对象名称的音节数量（单音节与多音节）是否能预测在记忆任务的上下文中对刺激对象的注视时间，从而表明语言记录。还考虑了儿童（N = 39，年龄 5-7 岁）的语言能力。年龄较小的儿童（5;1-6;3 岁）在编码过程中似乎没有对视觉刺激的语言标签进行声部重新编码，而已经上小学的年龄较大的儿童（6;4-7;3 岁）看起来更长在带有多音节标签的对象上。值得注意的是，主要是那些导致这种影响的儿童中语言能力较差。因此，