Diferenças na aquisição e processamento de nomes concretos e abstratos por crianças brasileiras de 2 anos

Abstract

Cognitive processes are fundamentally abstract and arise from the interplay of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. This dissertation examines how such processes unfold in language acquisition, from early perceptual stages to the formation of conceptual representations. We start from the hypothesis that access to mental representations is inherently abstract, regardless of conceptual type, and investigate how this is reflected in the acquisition of concrete versus abstract words. Stimulus selection involved two preregistration steps via Google Forms: (i) a Brazilian Portuguese CDI readaptation completed by 56 caregivers of children aged 24 to 30 months (lexical comprehension and production), and (ii) concreteness/abstractness ratings provided by 445 adult native speakers. We then conducted an online eye-tracking control experiment, via an MIT platform named Lookit, with 53 adults and a child experiment with 52 children (24–30 months). We tested (i) differences in access and processing of concrete versus abstract items, (ii) relative interest in each item type, and (iii) the accuracy of lexical access. Findings show that adults and children access and interpret concrete and abstract words differently, indicating that conceptual nature modulates acquisition, access, and linguistic processing. Beyond underscoring the study’s transdisciplinary scope and its relevance to the Brazilian context, this work introduces the innovative use of Lookit and offers comparative parameters for research involving populations at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, informing the design of diagnostic tools and early interventions across clinical and educational settings.