language Flashcards

1
Q

when does hearing begin?

A

in the womb

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2
Q

who investigated change in heart rate in response to sound?

A

Lecanuet et al, 1995

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3
Q

how does heart rate change in response to sound in the womb?

A

from weeks 23-28 there was no response
from 29 weeks of age, when a noise is introduced, there is a response in heart rate

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4
Q

who showed that babies actively process speech before birth?

A

De Casper and Spence (1986)

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5
Q

how is it shown that speech processing occurs before birth?

A

babies can recognise a story that they heard whilst in the womb

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6
Q

what is transnatal learning?

A

encoding information before birth
recognising information after birth

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7
Q

what was De Casper and Spence’s procedure for investigating speech processing before birth?

A

12 pregnant women read a passage from The Cat in the Hat twice a day per day for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy

story chosen as expressive with a regular rhyme

2/3 days after birth, babies were tested for recognition with a sucking response

pressure sensitive dummy- either played The Cat in the Hat, or an unfamiliar passage

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8
Q

what were the results of De Casper and Spence’s study?

A

babies altered sucking pattern to The Cat in the Hat, but not the unfamiliar one

change occurred irrespective of who read the test

so the babies were recognising the story rather than the mother’s voice

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9
Q

who investigated whether babies can tell languages apart?

A

Christophe and Morton (1998)

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10
Q

what does prosodic mean?

A

rhythm/pattern of language

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11
Q

what was Christophe and Morton’s procedure for seeing if babies can tell languages apart?

A

presented 2 month old English babies with two different language comparisons

English vs Japanese (different prosodies)
English vs Dutch (similar prosodies)

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12
Q

what were Christophe and Morton’s results for seeing if babies can tell languages apart?

A

babies could tell the difference between English and Japanese, but not English and Dutch

babies can use prosody to distinguish languages

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13
Q

what is a phoneme?

A

smallest sound unit which carries distinctions between one meaning and another, eg) b and p

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14
Q

what is a phoneme boundary?

A

where a change in sound can provide a change in meaning

physical parameter, such as voice onset time, changes perception from one phoneme (b) to another (p)

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15
Q

what is important to be able to do with phonemes?

A

tell apart different phonemes

perceive different variants of the same phoneme as the same (to perceive all instances of p as p)

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16
Q

who investigated infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

A

Eimas et al, 1971

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17
Q

how did Eimas et al test infants discrimination of speech sounds?

A

High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm

familiar sound: sucking declines
novel sound: sucking revives

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18
Q

what was Eimas’ method to determine infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

A

phase 1: babies aged 1-4 months were presented with the single sound ba
increased their rate of sucking, then it went back to the baseline

phase 2: now a new but familiar sound was played- half the babies heard a different phoneme (p), half the babies heard a variant of (b)

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19
Q

what were the results of Eimas’ method to determine infant’s early discrimination of speech sounds?

A

babies who heard p increased sucking rate

babies who heard b did not increase sucking rate

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20
Q

what age group has the potential to make any phonetic discrimination?

A

newborn babies

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21
Q

who investigated the developmental change for how language experience shapes infant’s speech perception?

A

Werker and Tees, 1984

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22
Q

how did Werker and Tees investigate the change in infant’s speech perception?

A

compared babies from language communities where the phonemes differ

tried to see if English babies can discriminate between Hindi Da and da

used the conditioned headturn paradigm

23
Q

what were the results for Werker and Tees investigating the change in infant’s speech perception?

A

baby at 6 months was still found to be a universal listener

by 10 months, stopped being a universal listener

24
Q

why is it beneficial for infants to stop perceiving phonetic differences in other languages?

A

more important to become specialised to the language you hear
become finely tuned to this
later become specialists at semantics

25
Q

who investigated how experience of foreign language can reverse the decline in non-native speech perception?

A

Kuhl et al, 2003

26
Q

what is the procedure for how experiencing a foreign language can reverse decline in non-native speech perception?

A

took place over 12 sessions

American infants were exposed to English and Chinese

decline only occurred when with a native naturalistic specialist speaker of the language- interaction needed to be synchronous

27
Q

what is an example of perceptual narrowing in infancy?

A

we become better at distinguishing between human faces as we get older, but become worse at distinguishing between monkey faces

28
Q

what is an issue of research into infant perceptual narrowing of speech?

A

mostly uses WEIRD samples

29
Q

who investigated infant’s ability to extract words from fluent speech?

A

Jusczyk and Aslin (1995)

30
Q

what was Jusczyk’s procedure for assessing infant’s ability to extract words from fluent speech?

A

familiarised 7.5 month old infants to repetitions of sentences
contained 2 target words
tested target and novel individual words using the preferential listening/head turn paradigm

31
Q

how can babies tell where one word ends and the next word begins?

A

helped by infant directed speech

implicit discovery of cues in the language input

32
Q

what are the characteristics of infant directed speech?

A

higher in pitch

more exaggerated/meaningful pitch patterns

shorter utterances (bits of spoken language)

longer pauses

simplified sentence structure

33
Q

how do babies find cues in language?

A

use prosodic/rhythm cues

attend to transitional probabilities

34
Q

what are prosodic cues for the English language?

A

90% of words have stress on the first syllable

strong-weak stress pattern

babies could use the presence of stressed syllable as a guide to the beginning of a word

35
Q

who investigated infant’s sensitivity to syllable stress?

A

Jusczyk, Cutler and Redanz (1993)

36
Q

what did Jusczyk, Cutler and Redanz find about infant’s sensitivity to syllable stress?

A

compared strong-weak with weak-strong words

6 and 9 month old infants

at 6 months, showed no preference

by 9 months, spent longer listening to strong-weak word lists

37
Q

what are transitional probabilities?

A

the probability of one syllable following another

38
Q

why are transitional probabilities important?

A

certain syllables will occur more often than others

more commonly occuring sequences are likely to be words

39
Q

who investigated transitional probabilities?

A

Saffran et al (1996), Johnson and Jusczyk (2001)

40
Q

how were transitional probabilities investigated?

A

investigated the use of transitional probabilities in the detection of word boundaries by 8 month old infants

invented words by taking 12 syllables, and combining them into 4 sequences to make:
pa/ki/bu
ti/bo/du
go/la/tu
da/ro/pi

phase 1: heard the words over and over, in a random order with no pauses

phase 2: infants were presented with 4 words, they also heard part-words where syllables from two words were recombined

attention to words and part-words were measured by orientation to a loudspeaker

preference for part words than whole words= novelty preference

41
Q

what is comprehension of a word?

A

identifying words from a speech stream

remembering what words sound like so you can recognise them again

linking the word with a consistent event

42
Q

what is production of a word?

A

repeating the sound of the word

saying the word in an appropriate context

43
Q

what age does word comprehension occur?

A

around 6 to 9 months

44
Q

what age does word production occur?

A

around 12 months

45
Q

how can we measure word comprehension?

A

parental reports (Communicative Development Inventory)

home observations/video recordings

asking infants to choose a named object from a choise, or preferential looking paradigm

46
Q

how can parental reports measure word comprehension?

A

indicate what their child can and cannot say

47
Q

who investigated early word comprehension for socially salient words?

A

Tincoff and Jusczyk (1999)

48
Q

what did Tincoff and Jusczyk find out about early word comprehension for socially salient words?

A

6 month old infants

heard recordings of a voice saying ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ whilst viewing two monitors: one showing their mother, one showing their father

infants looked more at the video matching the word heard

49
Q

what is fast mapping?

A

the ability to form quick, rough but usually accurate hypotheses about the meaning of new words, from its use in a sentence

50
Q

what is the range of words for children around 16 months old?

A

70-270 words

51
Q

how does the high amplitude sucking procedure occur?

A

put a dummy in babies mouth and attach it to a machine which assesses the pressure when a baby sucks

introduce speech when a baby sucks

then the baby begins to suck more often to make the sound, declines as they get bored

52
Q

what happens in the head turn preference procedure?

A

assesses how interesting different speech stimuli are to infants

how many times the infant turns to the stimuli presented behind a flashing light

speech continutes to play until the infants get bored and look away

pay more attention if it is familiar to them

53
Q

what happens in the preferential looking procedure?

A

examines infants understanding of word meanings

at what age do infants beging to understand that words label objects in the world

infant sits on parents lap and views two videos whilst listening to a voice which says words matching one of the videos

based on the infants looking patterns we can determine whether the infant can understand the association between the word and the objects