1-3 - Prelinguistic Development: Production

Question 0

What is the going hypothesis on learning and language development?

Answer 0

The infant has to know something about the language they are going to hear

Question 1

How does Maturation affect language development?

Answer 1

The infant doesn’t need much more maturation to hear but need tons of maturation in order to speak

There are major changes to the vocal track during the first 6 months of life

Question 2

What are two hypotheses on infant language perception?

Answer 2

Former: Infants are born with limited perceptual ability

Current: Infants are born with the ability to perceive more and possible all speech sounds

Question 3

Why was it believed that infants are born with limited perceptual ability? When did our belief in this change?

Answer 3

Assumed because they didn’t do much of anything

People started asking questions in the 1960s

When this was seen as an empirical issue (we may actually be able to test this)

Question 4

How did we learn that infants are born with the ability to perceive more and possibly all speech sounds?

Answer 4

Once we started testing infants empirically

Question 5

What are three methods for studying infant language perception?

Answer 5

Sucking rate

Heart rate

Head turn

Question 6

Which is the most common method for studying infant speech perception?

Answer 6

Sucking Rate

Question 7

At what age is the Sucking Rate method used?

Answer 7

< 0;6

Question 8

How does the Sucking Rate Method work?

Answer 8

Sucking is rewarded by increasing the audio stimulus

Increase in sucking -> more stimulus
Decrease in sucking -> less stimulus

Question 9

At what age is the Heart Rate method used?

Answer 9

< 0;6

Question 10

What are some issues with the Heart Rate method?

Answer 10

Didn’t work out so well because heart rate can change for so many reasons

You would need an enormous amount of infants to test in order to find consistency

Question 11

At what age is the Head Turn method used?

Answer 11

0;6+

Question 12

The Habituation Paradigm is a basic property of the _____.

Answer 12

Central nervous system (CNS)

Question 13

What is habituation?

Answer 13

You start tuning out the stimulus

Question 14

______ leads to habituation.

Answer 14

Repetition

Question 15

What is dishabituation?

Answer 15

Tuning your attention to a stimulus

You get a new interesting stimulus

Question 16

______ leads to dishabituation.

Answer 16

New stimuli

Question 17

What did Eilers study? What did Eimas study?

Answer 17

Eilers = Spanish/English bilabial stops

Eimas = English bilabial stops

Question 18

Who did Eimas et al study?

Answer 18

26 infants at 0;1

26 infants at 0;4

Question 19

When was Eimas et al’s big year?

Answer 19

1971

Question 20

What method did Eimas et al use?

Answer 20

Measured sucking rate

Question 21

What stimuli did Eimas et al use?

Answer 21

/pa/

/ba/

Question 22

What is the universal theory?

Answer 22

That infants can make fine phonetic discriminations

Question 23

What results did Eimas et al find?

Answer 23

There was a difference in sucking rate when phonemes were switched

Thus infants can make fine phonetic discriminations

Question 24

Who did Eilers et al study?

Answer 24

8 infants from Spanish speaking homes 8 infants from English speaking homes

Question 25

When was Eilers et al's big year?

Answer 25

1979

Question 26

What stimuli did Eilers et al use?

Answer 26

/pa/ vs/ /ba/ in English /pa/ vs/ /ba/ in Spanish (English /p/ and the Spanish /p/ differ slightly)

Question 27

What were the ages of the infants in Eilers et al's study?

Answer 27

0;6-0;8

Question 28

What were Eilers et al's results for English infants?

Answer 28

Distinguished 92% of the English /p/ and /b Distinguished 42% of the Spanish /p/ and /b/

Question 29

What method did Eilers et al use?

Answer 29

Head turn

Question 30

How did Eilers et al interpret the discrepancy between the English & Spanish results?

Answer 30

That maybe the difference between English phonemes is found more commonly found across languages Perhaps the Spanish phonemic difference is more subtle and harder to perceive

Question 31

What were Eilers et al's results for Spanish infants?

Answer 31

Distinguished 86% of the English /p/ and /b/ Distinguished 80% of the Spanish /p/ and /b/

Question 32

When was Walker & Tees' big year?

Answer 32

1984

Question 33

What was Eilers et al's conclusion?

Answer 33

Some sounds may be harder to perceive than others Infants may not be about to perceive absolutely all sounds (Still the overwhelming evidence seems to prove the universal theory)

Question 34

What stimuli did Walker & Tees use?

Answer 34

Hindi dental vs. retroflex stops Salish [k'] vs. [q'] ( ['] means glottalized) These are all sounds that native English speakers cannot distinguish

Question 35

Who did Walker & Tees study?

Answer 35

English "speaking" infants between the ages of 0;6-1;0

Question 36

What method did Walker & Tees use?

Answer 36

Head turning

Question 37

What were Walker & Tees' results for ages 0;6- 0;8?

Answer 37

95%: Perception of Hindi Differences 80%: Perception of Salish Differences

Question 38

What were Walker & Tees' results for ages 0;8 - 0;10?

Answer 38

68%: Perception of Hindi Differences 52%: Perception of Salish Differences

Question 39

What were Walker & Tees' results for ages 0;10 – 0;12?

Answer 39

20%: Perception of Hindi Differences 10%: Perception of Salish Differences

Question 40

What did Walker & Tees conclude?

Answer 40

The universal theory is accurate Ability for non-native sounds is lost around 0;10

Question 41

At what "stage" of language development did Walker & Tees see their results drop off?

Answer 41

At the same point that the infants start developing speech

Question 42

What did Juszyk find?

Answer 42

Infants perceive wide range of speech vowels & consonants

Question 43

When was Juszyk's big year?

Answer 43

1997

Question 44

Juszyk found that infants prefer their native language from _____.

Answer 44

Birth

Question 45

Juszyk found that infants prefer their mother’s voice from _____.

Answer 45

Birth

Question 46

Juszyk found that infants prefer frequent phonotactics from _____.

Answer 46

0;9

Question 47

Juszyk found that infants prefer their own names from _____.

Answer 47

0;4

Question 48

What is the Perceptual Assimilation Model?

Answer 48

That we assimilate non-native sounds to those that are similar to our native language E.g. Japanese speakers with English /r/ /l/ E.g. English speakers with Zulu clicks

Question 49

What are phonotactics?

Answer 49

Allowed phoneme combinations

Question 50

What did Jusczyk write about in his book?

Answer 50

That infants only hear about 15% of words in isolation. The rest is heard during continuous speech. This seems to help the child develop phonemic structure of the language

Question 51

Who came up with the Perceptual Assimilation Model?

Answer 51

Best

Question 52

Who studied Phonological Deafness?

Answer 52

Doupoux & Peperkamp

Question 53

What did Doupoux & Peperkamp find?

Answer 53

That infants form prelexical representations around 1;0 After this point the infant is so tuned into all the elements of language that they ignore the rest

Question 54

What were the two words used in the Phonological Deafness study?

Answer 54

Japanese [ebzo] vs. [ebuzo] (voiceless vowels)