Language

Question 1

Why is methodology so important in developmental psychology?

Answer 1

Because infants can neither follow verbal instructions nor give verbal responses & because their attention & motivation varies widely between occasions & Pps

Question 2

3 behavioural responses to measure are:

Answer 2

Non-nutritive sucking, head turns, eye gaze & so looking times, kicking a mobile (recognise that doing do so is rewarded in certain contexts)

Question 3

ERPs are calculated by

Answer 3

Averaging electrical activity from across the scalp & locking it to stimulus onset

Question 4

NIRS measures

Answer 4

Relative changes in the amount of absorption of near infra red light by haemoglobin

Question 5

Could learning begin in the uterus? (2 points)

Answer 5

Yes, the auditory system is functioning at 6m

Yes, sounds < 1000 Hz can be heard in the womb & speech operates between 100 & 4000 Hz

Question 6

Do newborns recognise their mother’s voice from the womb? Is this true for fathers? This recognition is impressive given___ (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980)

Answer 6

Yes, as indicated by their sucking rate & so preference for the mother’s voice compared with an unfamiliar female’s. No. Different pre & post natal sounds & the need for memory

Question 7

Can newborns discriminate between familiar vs. unfamiliar speech content? (DeCasper & Spence, 1986)

Answer 7

Yes, newborns prefer a poem which is familiar from having been read several times during pregnancy vs. a novel poem also read by the mother at test

Question 8

Is the LH specialised for speech at birth? (Pena, 2003)

Answer 8

Yes, using NIRS, newborns showed greater LH activity in response to forward speech but not backward speech or silence

Question 9

What is IDS or motherease?

Answer 9

Speech directed at infants which is higher in pitch, contains simplified sentence structures, more exaggerated intonation contours, shorter utterances & longer pauses = more variation in the acoustic envelope

Question 10

Even newborns prefer IDS, even when___or___ is being spoken to English children. This shows that IDS contains___

Answer 10

Italian, German. Social and emotional cues = it’s not content which is being attended to

Question 11

Name 5 potential purposes of IDS

Answer 11

1) to mark turn taking episodes, 2) to attract infants’ attention to speech, 3) to indicate emotional affect, 4) to indicate important words, 5) to aid speech segmentation

Question 12

What are allophones?

Answer 12

Acoustically different phonemes which we perceive in the same way e.g. as /b/ i.e. the different phonemes within a category

Question 13

Eimas (1971) tested whether __m & __m infants could identify a 20ms VOT difference between vs. within categories. What was found?

Answer 13

4m & 1m. Both could discriminate across but not within categories, suggesting this may be innate

Question 14

Is categorical perception of auditory input human-specific?

Answer 14

No, macaques, chinchillas, quail, adults & infants show categorical perception for non-speech stimuli

Question 15

More recent evidence suggests adults & infants are sensitive to within-category changes in VOT - true?

Answer 15

Yes, but not as much as between-category changes in VOT

Question 16

Do infants lose or gain the ability to perceive VOT contrasts which are relevant vs. irrelevant to their native language?

Answer 16

They lose irrelevant contrasts e.g. Japanese infants lose the l/r distinction

Question 17

What distinguishes Hindi from English from Salish in terms of the /d/ to /t/ & /g/ to /k/ continuums?

Answer 17

English: /d/ & /t/ categories
Hindi: /d/ & 2 phoneme categories which span the English /t/
Salish: /g/ & 2 phoneme categories which span the English /k/

Question 18

Werker & Tees (1984) concluded that there is a ___ ___ for discriminating non-native contrasts. When can vs. can no longer infants discriminate non-native contrasts?

Answer 18

Sensitive period. 6-8m = can vs. 10-12m = cannot

Question 19

According to Kuhl (1992), prototypical sounds are heard most often and act as ___, attracting ___ sounding words to them

Answer 19

Magnets, similar

Question 20

Kuhl (2003) proposed the gating H1. What is this & what evidence supports it?

Answer 20

Not only statistical exposure but also social interaction is required to maintain the perception of phonemic contrasts. 9m American infants exposed to Mandarin from native Chinese speakers on TV or live. Only 9m who received live interaction were able to discriminate Chinese-exclusive contrasts at 10-12m

Question 21

How might social interaction facilitate the maintenance of categorical perception for phonemic contrasts? What is the focus of current research?

Answer 21

By 1) increasing infants’ interest, attention & arousal, 2) making the meaning & intention of the speech more salient through e.g. joint eye gaze. Testing robotic communication I.e. non-human agency

Question 22

What was the procedure of Juscyzk & Aslin’s (1995) study into the ability of 7.5 to identify familiar words? Which is more representative of the real world?

Answer 22

A) familiarised to 2 words, 7.5m listened longer to subsequent sentences containing the familiar words
B) familiarised to sentences containing 2 target words, 7.5m subsequently listened longer to these 2 words in isolation
B

Question 23

Connectionist models can exhibit ___-like behaviour, despite only operating via _ _

Answer 23

Rule, SL

Question 24

In middle-class families, toddlers hear ___-___ utterances/ day, about ___% are Qs & > ___% begin with the same construction = lots of ___

Answer 24

5000-7000, 33%, 50%, repetition

Question 25

How are social class differences in linguistic input so worrying?

Answer 25

Because by the age of 4, high SES infants have heard 44 million utterances directed towards them, whereas low SES infants have heard only 12 million = unavoidable inequality in the opportunity to learn