Language Acquisition

Question 1

describe results of study investigating when hearing begins? (Lecanuet et al., 1995)

Answer 1

at 29 weeks of age: when a noise is introduced, there is an obvious heart rate response from infants = starting to pick up on sounds

Question 2

what is transnatal learning?

Answer 2

encoding information before birth and recognising it after birth

Question 3

describe results of De Casper & Spence (1986) study into whether babies actively process speech before birth?

Answer 3

• 2/3 days after birth
• babies altered sucking pattern to hear familiar passage but not unfamiliar one
• change in sucking irrespective of whether mother or unfamiliar read the Cat in the Hat

Question 4

describe the 2 conditions in De Casper & Spence (1986) study into whether babies actively process speech before birth?

Answer 4

group 1: more they sucked on dummy = played cat in the hat

group 2: more they sucked on dummy = played unfamiliar passage

Question 5

n Christophe & Morton (1998) investigating whether babies can tell 2 languages apart, what 2 language comparisons did they use?

Answer 5

english vs dutch (similar in prosody)

or

english vs japanese (diff prosodic pattern)

Question 6

describe results of Christophe & Morton (1998) study into whether babies can tell 2 languages apart

Answer 6

babies could tell difference between english and Japanese but not english and dutch

can use prosody to distinguish languages

Question 7

what is a phoneme?

Answer 7

smallest sound unit that carries distinctiontions between one meaning and another (b and p)

Question 8

what are phoneme boundaries?

Answer 8

a physical parameter, such as voice onset time, changes perception from one phoneme to another

Question 9

in regards to phonemes, what is it crucial for infants to do?

Answer 9

• tell apart different phonemes (b and p)
• perceive different variants of same phoneme as same

Question 10

describe principle behind Eimas et al’s (1971) study into infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

Answer 10

• shown same voice stimuli again and again
• high stimulus response initially, gradually wanes
• new sound stimulus
• greater response = dishabituated and recognised this as different sound

Question 11

describe results of Eimas et al’s (1971) study into infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

Answer 11

babies who heard p increased sucking rate

babies who heard b did not increase sucking rate

Question 12

describe conclusions of Eimas et al’s (1971) study into infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

Answer 12

infants as young as 1mo have a built in mechanism for distinguishing speech sounds, can be used as building blocks for language acquisition

Question 13

what is phonetic discrimination in native and foreign languages?

Answer 13

• newborn babies have potential to make any phonetic discrimination
• adults do not have this same ability (unable to hear phonetic distinctions that occur in other languages)

Question 14

what was the research question in Werker & Tess (1984) study into how language experience shapes infant’s speech perception?

Answer 14

can english babies discriminate between hindi ‘da’ and ‘da’?

Question 15

describe the conditioned head turn paradigm?

Answer 15

• whenever there is change in auditory stimulus
• electric toy is lit up and activated
• infants trained to look at toy whenever they hear a change in anticipation
• target items played
• observer who can’t hear sounds judges whether infants heard a stimulus change based on their actions

Question 16

describe results of Werker & Tess (1984) study into how language experience shapes infant’s speech perception?

Answer 16

by 10 months: baby stops hearing differences between 2 sounds and is no longer universal listener

6-8 months: infants able to discriminate between hindi contrasts

Question 17

what is a problem with perceptual narrowing?

Answer 17

relies on experimental evidence that is very limited in its linguistic and geographic diversity

Question 18

has perceptual narrowing been found in face recognition?

Answer 18

yes:

• all good at distinguishing faces from own face
• 6 mos good at distinguishing faces monkey faces
• other race effect = better at distinguishing faces from own race

Question 19

when does the other race effect begin?

Answer 19

1 year

Question 20

describe the preferential listening paradigm?

Answer 20

• infant sits on caregivers lap
• on each trial, one of the side lights flash
• when infant orients to light, sound comes from that speaker
• experimenter records how long infant looks at ‘source’ of sound as a measure of infant’s preference

Question 21

how are infants able to tell when one word ends and the next begins?

Answer 21

• infant directed speech
• syllable stress
• ability to attend to transitional probabilities

Question 22

how does infant directed speech help infants be able to tell when one word ends and the next begins?

Answer 22

• higher in pitch
• exaggerated intonation contours
• shorter utterances
• longer pauses
• simplified sentence structure

Question 23

what are the exceptions to words with a strong-weak stress pattern in english?

Answer 23

guitar and belong

Question 24

describe results of Jusczyk, Cutler & Redanz (1993) study into infant’s sensitivity to syllable stress?

Answer 24

at 9 months, infants spent longer listening to strong-weak lists of words (typical of english language), must be sensitive

Question 25

what is a transitional probability?

Answer 25

probability of one syllable following another

• certain sequences of syllables will occur more often than others
• more commonly occurring sequences likely to be words

Question 26

give an example of the invented words used in Saffran et al (1996) & Johnson & Jusczyk (2001) study into transitional probabilities?

Answer 26

pa/ki/bu
ti/ba/du
/go/la/tu
da/ro/pi

Question 27

describe results of Saffran et al (1996) & Johnson & Jusczyk (2001) study into transitional probabilities?

Answer 27

• listened to longer to part words compared to coherent words
• novelty preference when heard different words

Question 28

what 3 steps must be achieved in order to comprehend words?

Answer 28

1) identify word from speech stream

2) remember what word sounds like so you can recognise it when you hear it again

3) link word with some consistent event

Question 29

what 5 steps must be achieved in order to produce words?

Answer 29

1) identify word from speech stream

2) remember what word sounds like so you can recognise it when you hear it again

3) link word with some consistent event

4) repeat sound of word

5) say word in appropriate context

Question 30

when does speech comprehension emerge?

Answer 30

6-9 months

Question 31

when does speech production emerge?

Answer 31

12 months

Question 32

what are the 3 ways we measure comprehension?

Answer 32

1) parental reports - communicative development inventory

2) home observations/recordings

3) in lab, ask infant to choose named object from array (Golnikoff et al., 1987) or preferential looking

Question 33

at 6 mo, what is the range of words understood by typically developing children?

Answer 33

70-270 words