**Abstract**
**Can children remember what you say although it is not directed to them?**
Children show better retention and generalization of novel objects when
objects are presented spaced out in time and tested after a delay. However,
retention and generalization have only been examined in direct
conversations. It has been found that less than 25% of the time a child
interacts with a caregiver is in direct conversations. Moreover, previous
research has shown that children can successfully acquire novel words in
overhearing contexts. The current study examines whether monolingual, 24-
to 35-month-olds are able to retain novel object exemplar labels in an
overhearing context. Children sit off to the side while two experimenters
teach each other novel object-label pairs in either a massed, objects are
presented in immediate succession, or spaced, each object is presented
after a 15-second delay, presentation. Then, children are asked to identify
the novel exemplar in a forced-choice test after a two-minute delay.
Preliminary results (N = 12) suggest that children in both conditions are
struggling to retain object exemplar labels. In addition, we will discuss
the relationship between overt attention during the task and children’s
task responses.