Prelinguistic Speech Processing Flashcards

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1
Q

Language is generative. What does this mean?

A

That it can generate an infinite number of new words and sentences with finite resources.

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2
Q

Language is semantic this means that it will convey what?

A

Meaning

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3
Q

Phonology means what?

A

Language is made up of smaller units

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4
Q

What is meant by syntax?

A

Language has rules about how words will fit together.

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5
Q

What is the syntax rule of english?

A

Subject- Verb-Object

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6
Q

What sounds are involved in language?

A

Prosody and Phonemes

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7
Q

What are the three basic study designs when studying langauge in infants?

A
  1. Preference studies
  2. Habituation/Familiarisation Study
  3. Change detection studies
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8
Q

What is a preference study design?

A

It observes what infants prefer to listen or look at in observations.

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9
Q

Familiarisation studies involves what?

A

Training. First infants are trained and then they are observed and measured on what they prefer.

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10
Q

What is a change detection study?

A

This is when infants are trained to respond to a change

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11
Q

What does a change detection study aim to investigate?

A

Whether and infant can detect change between two things.

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12
Q

Prosody regards what sounds in language?

A

The stress and intonations (e.g the rhythm and rise and fall of the voice when speaking)

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13
Q

What are Phonemes?

A

These are the distinct/obvious/easy to hear units of sound in language that distinguish words from each other.

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14
Q

Phonemes will differ between what?

A

Languages, certain languages will differ between the sounds they use as phonemes.

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15
Q

At what point is foetal auditory system completely functioning?

A

By the last trimester

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16
Q

Nazzi et al. 1998 Study found that newborn children can discriminate between what?

A

Languages with different prosody but not languages with similar prosodies

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17
Q

Moon et al. 1993 found that children prefer hearing…

A

Their own native languages compared to other languages.

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18
Q

De Caspar & Fifer 1980 found that children prefer hearing their father’s voice. T/F?

A

False they prefer hearing their mother’s voice over any other adults voice.

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19
Q

At what age/year will a child begin to produce the phonemic sounds of their target/native language?

A

At around a years old.

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20
Q

Phonemes are sounds that distinguish what?

A

words from each other, letters such as P,B,D,Z are common phonemes in english

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21
Q

Very young infants have an ability that adults do not have. What is it?

A

They have the ability to distinguish between all sounds, even those that are not their native langauge.

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22
Q

Who conducted research into children’s multi-langauge phoneme distinction abilities?

A

Eimas et al. 1979
Miyawaki et al. 1975

23
Q

At what age can a child no longer distinguish between different sounds of non-target language?

A

At around 7-11 months this ability begins to decline
It will begin to focus solely on their target langauge

24
Q

What age does familiarisation begin?

A

7 1/2 Months

25
Q

What is meant by familiarisation?

A

This is the ability for children to be able to segment words from their language.

26
Q

What is meant when it’s said that children use statistics when finding and discriminating words?

A

This simply means that children are able to track and remember the co-occurence of syllables in language. They understand that syllables that often co-occur are likely to be part of the same word.

27
Q

Saffran et al. 1996 Investigated what?

A

How children use statistics and Transitional probability to find and segment words in speech.

28
Q

what is transitional probability?

A

This is the likelihood that one particular sound will follow another to form a word.

29
Q

What did Saffran et al. 1996 find from their observational study?

A

That children would listen longer to part words, Suggesting that they could distinguish and find words within the stream.

30
Q

What issues are there with the Saffran et al. 1996?

A

Methodological issue it uses a familiarisation study design , it is impossible to know if the child can actual detect change because they listen to it longer. We are just making inference not actually finding causality.

31
Q

What is infant directed speech and who uses it? term was coined by?

A

Christia,2012
This is speech that is used when talking to children, it will often be slower and higher in pitch.
Children are more attentive to it.

32
Q

What features are exaggerated in IDS?

A

Important words are strongly enunciated.
The gaps between phrases are longer in order to make it easier for a child to segment/break up speech.

33
Q

Theiseen , Hill and Saffran et al. 2005 found that children prefer IDS? T/F

A

True they are found to be a lot more attentive to it and will find it easier to break up speech rather than when they use ADS

34
Q

How does frequency help a child to find words?

A

They act as an anchor.
Words that are salient and highly frequent e.g babys, name, mummy, he/she.

35
Q

How does an Anchor help a child to find an distinguish words?

A

It helps them to identify words in a speech stream, and subsequently the boundary of the next/adjacent word.

36
Q

Bortfeld et al. 2005 study investigated what?

A

How highly familiar and frequent words help 6 months-old to segment words.

37
Q

What were the findings of Bortfeld et al. 2005?

A

Found that children of 6 months, e.g Baby Maggie could recognise words that appeared next to their name e.g Bike or Cup

38
Q

Why does Bortfeld et al. 2005 findings clash with the findings of Juscysk and Aslin (1995)?

A

Aslin et al. 1995 suggested that familiarisation ( the ability to segment words) only begins at age 7.5 months.

39
Q

What linguistic categories of words are highly frequent?

A

Articles such as the , a , his, hers
and Conjunctions and, or

40
Q

Shi and Lepage, 2008 Investigated what?

A

How children begin to use certain linguistic categories such as Articles (the) to segment words.

41
Q

What did Shi and Lepage, (2008) find?

A

infants will listen longer (prefer) to an isolated word that was taught with a real function word.

42
Q

How is frequency involved when finding patterns in language?

A

Words that are highly frequent are usually words of function. They can provide grammatical function.

43
Q

A child needs to understand word order in order to understand what?

A

Syntax rules

44
Q

In english where will function words usually appear?

A

before the article, pronoun or preposition.

45
Q

What did Gervain et al. 2008 investigate?

A

Where frequents are in different languages and by what age children are sensitive to this.

46
Q

What did Gervain et al. 2008 find?

A

Depending on what their native language used (e.g Japan Frequent last whereas Italian was Frequent First)
- 8-Month Olds would listen longer to the words that were in line with their native word order
- suggests that by this age they had begun to learn the ordering rules for their language

47
Q

What is meant by rule learning in pre-linguistic language development?

A

This refers to how when children learn syntax they must learn the abstract rules of a language.

48
Q

What did Marcus et al. 1999 investigate?

A

Whether or not children could learn abstract rules of linguistic stimuli using familiarisation.

49
Q

What did Marcus et al. 1999 find?

A

The study found that children could learn an abstract rule with linguistic stimuli.
For example children that had already familiarized the ABA pattern would listen longer to ABB patterns.
and Vice Versa

50
Q

What 3 things must infants be able to do before they begin to learn language?

A
  1. Identify sounds that make up their language
  2. segment/ break up speech into smaller units (words)
  3. Be able to figure out how these smaller units are organised to convey specific meanings.
51
Q

before they start to speak infants must be able to do what?

A

Understand the specifics/rules of their language (sounds, order, frequency)

52
Q

What criticisms are there of highly controlled experiments of langauge e.g Saffran et al. 1996?

A

They are highly controlled explanations of language acquisition
- may not be applicable to the real world, it is messier and less controlled

53
Q

Can the skills identified completely explain language acquisition?

A

No other skills might be needed.