EXAM 1: Dr. Kuhl

Question 1

Phonetic Boundary

Answer 1

The boundary that separates one phoneme from another (aka R/L)

Infants are very sensitive to this distinction for all 40 phonemes, citizens of the world

Question 2

Native Language Neural Commitment

Answer 2

Differentiating native language to foreign sounds

Question 3

Minimal Pair

Answer 3

Pair of words that differ in only one phoneme

Rake/Lake are minimal pairs

Question 4

/r/ and /l/ study

Answer 4

Japanese infants more exposed to unimodal distribution, does not differentiate between /r/ and /l/ sounds

English infants are more exposed to bimodal distribution, does differentiate between /r/ and /l/

Question 5

Statistical Distribution

Answer 5

Infants learn to differentiate their native language sounds based off of the distributive frequency in how often they hear certain phonemes

Question 6

Mandarin and social interactions study

Answer 6

Infants placed in face-to-face mandarin sessions distinguished much more mandarin phonemes compared to the control/visual/audio groups.

important of SOCIAL INTERACTION in learning language

Question 7

Transitional Probability study

Answer 7

Infants could track the statistical probability of certain phonemes coming after another phoneme i.e. (Pi comes after Tu in the word TUPINO 100% of the time)

Question 8

Statistical Distribution test with ta/da distinction study

Answer 8

Infants split into two groups, one listened to unimodal distribution between ta/da and the other listened to bimodal distribution of /ta/ and /da/.

Unimodal group could not distinguish the difference between /ta/ and /da/ while bimodal could differentiate it (proved by looking times, bimodal group looked longer at the unfamiliar nonalternating 3/6 (unimodal)

Question 9

IPA symbols

Answer 9

1:1 ratio with sound unlike English alphabet

Question 10

Lack of Invariance

Answer 10

(too much variability)
Allophones
Coarticulation (1st sound prepares to make 2nd sound, a form of assimilation, cause of allophones)
Aspiration/Unaspiration
Allomorphs

Question 11

Speech Perception includes:

Answer 11

Categorical Perception
Statistical Perception
Visual cues
Social interaction

Question 12

Audiovisual Perception experiment

Answer 12

When children had their lips and sound matching, looked longer at mismatching sound (novel)

When children had their lips and sound mismatching, looked longer at matching sound (novel)

Question 13

Gestures

Answer 13

Parental gesture leads to children gesture use, which leads to increased vocabulary

Generally, greater SES families used more gestures