近年研究發現成人與嬰兒能夠透過跨情境學習到字音與物件的配對(Smith & Yu, 2008; Yu & Smith, 2007)，並且背後運作的統計機制與視覺注意力的動態變化有緊密的關聯(Yu & Smith, 2011)。本研究為瞭解成人與嬰兒跨情境字彙學習能力個別差異在視覺注意力層面上的相對表現狀況，以及兩年齡層之語音學習經驗是否對跨情境字彙學習能力有所輔助，本研究設計一系列的四個實驗，訓練成人與嬰兒在跨情境字彙學習作業中找出正確的標籤與指示物件，使用眼球追蹤儀精確紀錄參與者的視覺軌跡並使用訊息理論的Entropy公式量化眼動狀態。研究者操弄參與者學習母語（華語）或非母語（英語）語音標籤，預期成人與嬰兒因為長期的語音學習經驗而幫助母語標籤與物件的連結建立。研究結果有三個主要的發現。第一，學習者的連結表現差異確實和學習過程的注意力有所相關，強學習者的眼動Entropy有顯著下降而弱學習者無，符合先前的研究發現。第二項發現是，無論成人與嬰兒學習者，確實能藉由過去語音知識來輔助母語語音標籤的連結學習，母語字音標籤與圖片的連結建立較佳。第三，研究發現成人學習者受到母語語音標籤的影響，在學習的一開始視覺注意力亂度就低於非母語語音。研究顯示標籤的語音結構的熟悉讓學習者有更多的注意力資源集中在連結的建立上，因此更加提高了字彙配對的學習效率。藉由將動態的注意力變化與連結學習結合，在本研究中有詳細的字彙統計學習機制之討論。

Recent studies had shown that adults and infants are capable of linking words and referents in cross-situational word learning (Smith & Yu, 2008; Yu & Smith, 2007). Also, the underlying statistical mechanisms are tightly linked with dynamic process of visual attention(Yu & Smith, 2011). This research aimed to investigate adult and infant individual differences of cross-situational word learning performance on the visual attention level as well as to understand the effects of phonological experience on cross-situational word learning in both ages. A series of four experiments were designed to train adults and infants with cross-situational word learning paradigm, in which they had to find the correct word-referent pairs. Their eye movements were accurately recorded using eye-tracker and were quantified by the index from Information Theory called Entropy. Native (Chinese) or non-native (English) linguistic labels were manipulated in different groups of adult and infant participants, and better label-referent associations for native linguistic group were expected due to learners’ linguistic learning experience. There are three main findings in the results. First, similar to the previous studies, individual differences in the task performances were related to the attention during learning, in the way that strong learners’ eye-movement entropy declined significantly while weak learners’ did not. Second, phonological knowledge indeed could facilitate associative learning of native linguistic labels in both adults and infants, leading to better associations between these labels and referents. Third, native linguistic labels impact attention pattern of adult learners at the very beginning so that their eye-movement entropy started off lower than those in non-native linguistic label group. Our research showed that familiarity with the sound structure of the labels created more attention resource focusing on building the association, thus it increased the efficiency in learning the word pairs. Through integrating dynamic process of attention with associative learning, statistical word learning mechanisms were fully discussed in the research.

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