Language pt.2

Question 1

In terms of language, what problems do children need to solve?

Answer 1

Phonology, syntax and morphology but also have to learn to generalise appropriately

Question 2

What is segmentation?

Answer 2

Infants have to learn words from continuous stream of speech as there are no gaps between the words in the speech stream. They use transitional probabilities to break up sentences

Question 3

What did Saffran do?

Answer 3

Used a technique called the head turn preference procedure to look at segmentation in 8 month olds. Infants exposed to continuous stream of syllables for 2 minutes

Question 4

What occurred in experiment 1 of Saffran et al’s experiment?

Answer 4

Can infants distinguish words and non-words. Words = sequences where 1st syllable always followed by 2nd and 3rd. Non words = sequences where syllables never followed each other. Infants listened longer to non-words

Question 5

What occurred in experiment 2?

Answer 5

Can infants distinguish words and non words. Part words = sequences where 3rd syllable only followed 2nd syllable one third of the time. Infants listened longer to part words

Question 6

What were the findings of Saffron’s experiment?

Answer 6

8 month olds can discriminate 3 syllable sequences with high transitional probabilities - use them to finds words in the speech stream

Question 7

What technique did Brusini et al use?

Answer 7

Cognitive neuroscience technique called near infrared spectroscopy to look at how early are infants sensitive to transitional probabilities

Question 8

What did Brusini et al do?

Answer 8

Played newborns 3 mins of a stream of syllables and found that newborns showed different patterns of brain response to words and part words

Question 9

What is beyond transitional probabilities?

Answer 9

Although they are a good way to break into the speech signal, it needs to be segmented in different ways in different languages.

Question 10

What is the dominant stress pattern of English words?

Answer 10

Trochaic, strong to weak such as CANdle

Question 11

What did Jusczyk et al do?

Answer 11

Played English speaking 7.5 most old infants passages containing 2 syllable words. Some words had the trochaic stress pattern but others had iambic guiTAR

Question 12

What did Jusczyk find?

Answer 12

Infants listened longer to the words they had heard embedded in the longer passages than to control words but only if the target words had the trochaic pattern typical of English

Question 13

What do children have to learn in relation to word order rules?

Answer 13

In English it is SVO, subject verb object

Question 14

What is Tomasello’s verb island hypothesis?

Answer 14

He kept a detailed diary record of his daughters early multi word and noticed that similar verbs often behaved very differently in her speech, use of new verbs stated simple regardless of how complicated sentences with old verbs were

Question 15

What did Akhtar and Tomasello ask the children to do?

Answer 15

To act out sentences with novel verbs in SVO word other. Children performed at chance and concluded that children did not have verb general knowledge of word order

Question 16

What did Eisengart do?

Answer 16

Used preferential looking technique to measure looking time to the correct vs the incorrect alternative as the act out test is too difficult for young children

Question 17

What did Eisengart find?

Answer 17

In preferential looking up both 21 and 25 month olds showed verb general understanding of word other. Even 21 months olds know that the first mentioned noun

Question 18

What did toddlers know how to mark verbs for?

Answer 18

Agreement and tense

Question 19

What did Brown look at?

Answer 19

Looked at early multi word speech of 3 children in Boston - Adam, Eve and Sarah

Question 20

What did Brown find?

Answer 20

Correct use of verb marking develops only gradually. Adam stated using 3sg around age 2.6 but did not use it in 90% of obligatory contexts until age 3.6

Question 21

What did Bloom find?

Answer 21

Children drop endings as they lack the processing capacity to include all they know in their speech but in other languages children make errors where they add the wrong ending

Question 22

What did Pine et al do?

Answer 22

Used a computer model called MOSAIC to simulate errors in English, dutch, German, French and Spanish

Question 23

What does MOSAIC learn from?

Answer 23

Learns slowly from transcripts of child directed speech, gradually builds sentence from the right edge of the utterance

Question 24

What did Pine et al find?

Answer 24

Errors because children learning from the right edge of the utterance. More errors in Dutch and German because infinitives always come at the end and could not simulate very high rate of errors in English

Question 25

How do children learn how to generalise appropriately?

Answer 25

Children learn a rule, added -ed to make past tense form. Over generalise rule to irregular verbs. Some irregular common enough for children to er-learn them from the input

Question 26

When ar children more likely to produce irregulars?

Answer 26

When made up verbs sounded similar to real, existing irregulars