Language Differentiation (Pre-Lexical)

Question 1

Byers-Heinlein et al 2010

Answer 1

Tested newborns on their preference for English versus Tagalog. Newborns whose mothers only spoke English during pregnancy showed a preference for English, but newborns whose mothers spoke both English and Tagalog regularly during pregnancy showed equal preference

Question 2

Rhythmic & Prosodic discrimination

Answer 2

At 2 months, infants can discriminate between their home language and a rhythmically different one.
At 5 months, infants can differentiate between their home language and a prosodically similar one

Question 3

Sebastian Galles

Answer 3

Explored prosodic discrimination in Spanish-Catalan bilingual infants and monolinguals between these languages at 4.5 months- early discrimination is shown in both. Longer latencies were observed in orientation preferences to either native Spanish or Catalan compared to a prosodically different one

Question 4

Ramirez et al

Answer 4

Conducted a study with 16 11 month old infants They used MEG to measure magnetic changes given off by nerve cells and pinpointing brain activity. The infants listened to sounds specific to English, Spanish and both.
The bilingual babies had stronger brain responses to speech sounds. They displayed neural sensitivity to both English and Spanish sounds, and had the same sensitivity to English sounds as the monolingual babies