L6 - Language Acquisition

Question 1

When does hearing begin?

Answer 1

29 weeks during pregnancy is when babies can hear
HR increases when sound is produced that they can hear

Question 2

What was De Casper & Spence 1986 study into speech processing before birth?

Answer 2

Transnatal learning
They can recognise a story that they heard in the womb
Pregnant heard a passage from Cat in the Hat for the last 2 weeks before pregnancy
2 days after birth they were tested for a sucking response
Babies would suck harder and faster when hearing the familiar passage compared to hearing an unfamiliar passage

Question 3

What is Christophe and Morton 1998 research into telling languages apart?

Answer 3

2 month old English babies
English vs Japanese have different prosodic patterns
English vs Dutch have similar prosodic patterns
Babies could tell the difference between English and Japanese but not English and Dutch using prosodic patterns

Question 3

What are phenomes and phenome boundaries?

Answer 3

Phenome - the smallest sound unit that carry distinctions between one meaning and another e.g. p and b
Phenome boundary - where a physical parameter, such as voice onset time, changes perception from one phenome b to another p

Question 4

What did Eimas et al 1971 do to research early discrimination of speech sounds in infants?

Answer 4

High Amplitude Sucking paradigm (HAS)
Babies ages 1-4 months presented with a single sound ba and increased sucking rate
Once familiarised with the sound a new sound was played - half heard b and half heard p
Results - babies who heard p increased sucking rate more due to new novel sound and interest

Question 5

What is the conditioned headturn paradigm?

Answer 5

Whenever there is a change in auditory stimulus, electric toy lights up
Infants are trained to look at the toy when they hear something new
Observer judges if there was a change based on infants actions
At 6 months universal
At 10 months no reaction

Question 6

Why do infants stop perceiving phonetic differences in other languages and why is this beneficial?

Answer 6

Perceptual narrowing - infants are initially universal language perceivers
Language specific experiences provide infants with exposure to native and no exposure to non-natives
Systems become fine tuned
Exposure is needed to maintain

Question 7

What is perceptual narrowing?

Answer 7

Not specific to linguistics
Using the environment and experience to shape abilities

Question 8

What are the cautions to think about when discussing perceptual speech narrowing studies?

Answer 8

Has been said to universally apply despite lack of research universally
Not geographically diverse

Question 9

What is Jusczyk and Aslin 1995 research into speech segmentation?

Answer 9

Familiarised 7.5 month of repetition of sentences containing two target words
Then tested target and novel words using preferential listening and headturn paradigm

Question 10

What is the preferential listening paradigm?

Answer 10

Infants sit on caregivers lap
On each trial one side light flashed and when the infant orients to the light a sound comes
Experimenter records how long the infant looks at the source of the sound as a measure of preference

Question 11

What is infant directed speech (ID)

Answer 11

Higher pitched tone when talking to infants
Shorter utterances
Longer pauses
Helps to know when one word ends and the other begins

Question 12

What are implicit discovery of cues in language?

Answer 12

Use syllable stress (prosodic cues)
Attend to transitional probabilities

Question 13

What is syllable stress?

Answer 13

In English 90% of words have stress on the first syllable
Strong-weak stress pattern
Babies can use stress syllables as a guide to the beginning of words

Question 14

Are infants sensitive to English stress patterns?

Answer 14

Research compared strong-weak with weak-strong words
6 and 9 month infants
6 months showed no preference but 9 months spent longer listening to strong-weak words

Question 15

What is statistical learning: transitional probabilities?

Answer 15

TP - probability of one syllable following another
Certain sequences of syllables will occur more often than others
Commonly occurring sequences
Listened to part words for longer due to novelty preference

Question 16

What are the implications for research into language acquisition?

Answer 16

Bit confusing - some research says novelty preference, some says familiarity preference
Very limited exposure to speech stream
Bias to selectively attend to certain properties in the acoustic signal

Question 17

What is a word?

Answer 17

In comprehension - consistent and specific response to the use of a word, must be response to word itself rather than nonverbal cues
In production - consistent use of a sound sequence in a consistent and specific context

Question 18

How do you measure comprehension?

Answer 18

Parental reports - communicative development inventory (CDI)
Home observations / video recording
In lab, ask infants to choose names object from an array or use preferential looking paradigm

Question 19

What is the research into early word comprehension for socially salient words?

Answer 19

Tincoff and Jusczyk 1999
6 month old
Hear recordings of a voice saying mummy or daddy
Infants looked at the person who matched the word heard
By 6-9 months infants know the meaning of many common nouns
Demonstrated grater looking towards object in picture that matches words

Question 20

What is the development of compensation?

Answer 20

Children understand their first words at 6-9 months
Understanding increases slowly at first then accelerates
Fast mapping (Heidbeck, Markman 1987) - the ability to form quick and rough accurate hypothesis about the meaning of new words from how it is used in a sentence
At 16 months range is 70-270 words for typically developing children