language Flashcards
when does hearing begin?
in the womb
who investigated change in heart rate in response to sound?
Lecanuet et al, 1995
how does heart rate change in response to sound in the womb?
from weeks 23-28 there was no response
from 29 weeks of age, when a noise is introduced, there is a response in heart rate
who showed that babies actively process speech before birth?
De Casper and Spence (1986)
how is it shown that speech processing occurs before birth?
babies can recognise a story that they heard whilst in the womb
what is transnatal learning?
encoding information before birth
recognising information after birth
what was De Casper and Spence’s procedure for investigating speech processing before birth?
12 pregnant women read a passage from The Cat in the Hat twice a day per day for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy
story chosen as expressive with a regular rhyme
2/3 days after birth, babies were tested for recognition with a sucking response
pressure sensitive dummy- either played The Cat in the Hat, or an unfamiliar passage
what were the results of De Casper and Spence’s study?
babies altered sucking pattern to The Cat in the Hat, but not the unfamiliar one
change occurred irrespective of who read the test
so the babies were recognising the story rather than the mother’s voice
who investigated whether babies can tell languages apart?
Christophe and Morton (1998)
what does prosodic mean?
rhythm/pattern of language
what was Christophe and Morton’s procedure for seeing if babies can tell languages apart?
presented 2 month old English babies with two different language comparisons
English vs Japanese (different prosodies)
English vs Dutch (similar prosodies)
what were Christophe and Morton’s results for seeing if babies can tell languages apart?
babies could tell the difference between English and Japanese, but not English and Dutch
babies can use prosody to distinguish languages
what is a phoneme?
smallest sound unit which carries distinctions between one meaning and another, eg) b and p
what is a phoneme boundary?
where a change in sound can provide a change in meaning
physical parameter, such as voice onset time, changes perception from one phoneme (b) to another (p)
what is important to be able to do with phonemes?
tell apart different phonemes
perceive different variants of the same phoneme as the same (to perceive all instances of p as p)
who investigated infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?
Eimas et al, 1971
how did Eimas et al test infants discrimination of speech sounds?
High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm
familiar sound: sucking declines
novel sound: sucking revives
what was Eimas’ method to determine infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?
phase 1: babies aged 1-4 months were presented with the single sound ba
increased their rate of sucking, then it went back to the baseline
phase 2: now a new but familiar sound was played- half the babies heard a different phoneme (p), half the babies heard a variant of (b)
what were the results of Eimas’ method to determine infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?
babies who heard p increased sucking rate
babies who heard b did not increase sucking rate
what age group has the potential to make any phonetic discrimination?
newborn babies
who investigated the developmental change for how language experience shapes infant’s speech perception?
Werker and Tees, 1984
how did Werker and Tees investigate the change in infant’s speech perception?
compared babies from language communities where the phonemes differ
tried to see if English babies can discriminate between Hindi Da and da
used the conditioned headturn paradigm
what were the results for Werker and Tees investigating the change in infant’s speech perception?
baby at 6 months was still found to be a universal listener
by 10 months, stopped being a universal listener
why is it beneficial for infants to stop perceiving phonetic differences in other languages?
more important to become specialised to the language you hear
become finely tuned to this
later become specialists at semantics
who investigated how experience of foreign language can reverse the decline in non-native speech perception?
Kuhl et al, 2003
what is the procedure for how experiencing a foreign language can reverse decline in non-native speech perception?
took place over 12 sessions
American infants were exposed to English and Chinese
decline only occurred when with a native naturalistic specialist speaker of the language- interaction needed to be synchronous
what is an example of perceptual narrowing in infancy?
we become better at distinguishing between human faces as we get older, but become worse at distinguishing between monkey faces
what is an issue of research into infant perceptual narrowing of speech?
mostly uses WEIRD samples
who investigated infant’s ability to extract words from fluent speech?
Jusczyk and Aslin (1995)
what was Jusczyk’s procedure for assessing infant’s ability to extract words from fluent speech?
familiarised 7.5 month old infants to repetitions of sentences
contained 2 target words
tested target and novel individual words using the preferential listening/head turn paradigm
how can babies tell where one word ends and the next word begins?
helped by infant directed speech
implicit discovery of cues in the language input
what are the characteristics of infant directed speech?
higher in pitch
more exaggerated/meaningful pitch patterns
shorter utterances (bits of spoken language)
longer pauses
simplified sentence structure
how do babies find cues in language?
use prosodic/rhythm cues
attend to transitional probabilities
what are prosodic cues for the English language?
90% of words have stress on the first syllable
strong-weak stress pattern
babies could use the presence of stressed syllable as a guide to the beginning of a word
who investigated infant’s sensitivity to syllable stress?
Jusczyk, Cutler and Redanz (1993)
what did Jusczyk, Cutler and Redanz find about infant’s sensitivity to syllable stress?
compared strong-weak with weak-strong words
6 and 9 month old infants
at 6 months, showed no preference
by 9 months, spent longer listening to strong-weak word lists
what are transitional probabilities?
the probability of one syllable following another
why are transitional probabilities important?
certain syllables will occur more often than others
more commonly occuring sequences are likely to be words
who investigated transitional probabilities?
Saffran et al (1996), Johnson and Jusczyk (2001)
how were transitional probabilities investigated?
investigated the use of transitional probabilities in the detection of word boundaries by 8 month old infants
invented words by taking 12 syllables, and combining them into 4 sequences to make:
pa/ki/bu
ti/bo/du
go/la/tu
da/ro/pi
phase 1: heard the words over and over, in a random order with no pauses
phase 2: infants were presented with 4 words, they also heard part-words where syllables from two words were recombined
attention to words and part-words were measured by orientation to a loudspeaker
preference for part words than whole words= novelty preference
what is comprehension of a word?
identifying words from a speech stream
remembering what words sound like so you can recognise them again
linking the word with a consistent event
what is production of a word?
repeating the sound of the word
saying the word in an appropriate context
what age does word comprehension occur?
around 6 to 9 months
what age does word production occur?
around 12 months
how can we measure word comprehension?
parental reports (Communicative Development Inventory)
home observations/video recordings
asking infants to choose a named object from a choise, or preferential looking paradigm
how can parental reports measure word comprehension?
indicate what their child can and cannot say
who investigated early word comprehension for socially salient words?
Tincoff and Jusczyk (1999)
what did Tincoff and Jusczyk find out about early word comprehension for socially salient words?
6 month old infants
heard recordings of a voice saying ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ whilst viewing two monitors: one showing their mother, one showing their father
infants looked more at the video matching the word heard
what is fast mapping?
the ability to form quick, rough but usually accurate hypotheses about the meaning of new words, from its use in a sentence
what is the range of words for children around 16 months old?
70-270 words
how does the high amplitude sucking procedure occur?
put a dummy in babies mouth and attach it to a machine which assesses the pressure when a baby sucks
introduce speech when a baby sucks
then the baby begins to suck more often to make the sound, declines as they get bored
what happens in the head turn preference procedure?
assesses how interesting different speech stimuli are to infants
how many times the infant turns to the stimuli presented behind a flashing light
speech continutes to play until the infants get bored and look away
pay more attention if it is familiar to them
what happens in the preferential looking procedure?
examines infants understanding of word meanings
at what age do infants beging to understand that words label objects in the world
infant sits on parents lap and views two videos whilst listening to a voice which says words matching one of the videos
based on the infants looking patterns we can determine whether the infant can understand the association between the word and the objects
