**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.