language

Question 1

What is the sensorimotor stage of development according to Piaget’s developmental stages

Answer 1

Infant (0-2yrs) explores world thru direct sensory/motor contactObject permanence and separation anxiety develops in this stage Lays foundation for future stages (preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational)

Question 2

When does hearing begin in the fetus?

Answer 2

Fetal hearing begins before birth
- Changes in heart rate to sound (Lecanuet et al., 1995)
- Babies are actively processing speech before birth

Question 3

What is “transnatal learning” and which study showed it?

Answer 3

Learning that occurs prenatally and is remembered postnatally
- DeCasper & Spence (1986): babies recognized stories (Cat in the Hat) heard in the womb

Question 4

Describe DeCasper & Spence (1986) Cat in the Hat study (method and results).

Answer 4

12 pregnant women read Cat in the Hat 2x/day for last 6 weeks of pregnancy
- After birth, babies tested for recognition using sucking response
- Babies altered sucking to hear familiar passage (not just their mother’s voice)
- Shows prenatal speech processing and memory

Question 5

Can 2-month-old babies tell languages apart? (Christophe & Morton, 1998)

Answer 5

English babies could tell English vs Japanese (different prosody), but not English vs Dutch (similar prosody)
- Babies use prosody (rhythm, intonation) to distinguish languages

Question 6

What is a phoneme and why is it important for language?

Answer 6

Phoneme: smallest sound unit that distinguishes meaning (e.g., /b/ vs /p/)
- Must discriminate between different phonemes, but also group all variants of one phoneme

Question 7

What is the High Amplitude Sucking (HAS) paradigm? (Eimas et al., 1971)

Answer 7

Used to test speech discrimination in infants
- Sucking rate increases for novel sounds (e.g., /b/ to /p/), shows discrimination

Question 8

What did Eimas et al. (1971) show about infant phoneme discrimination?

Answer 8

1–4 month olds could discriminate /b/ vs /p/ using HAS
- Babies increased sucking rate for new phoneme, not variant of same phoneme

Question 9

How does phonetic discrimination change with development?

Answer 9

Newborns: universal language perceivers
- Adults: can’t always hear contrasts not present in native language

Question 10

What did Werker & Tees (1984) find about perceptual narrowing?

Answer 10

English infants could discriminate Hindi phonemes at 6–8 months, less at 8–10, gone at 10–12 months
- Experience with language shapes speech perception

Question 11

What is the conditioned headturn paradigm?

Answer 11

Infants trained to turn head when they hear change in auditory stimulus
- Used to assess discrimination of speech sounds (Werker & Tees, 1984)

Question 12

What is “perceptual narrowing” in speech?

Answer 12

Infants become specialists: lose sensitivity to non-native contrasts, tune in to native language
- System fine-tuned to relevant phonemes, semantics, grammar

Question 13

Can experience reverse perceptual narrowing? (Kuhl et al., 2003)

Answer 13

Yes—short-term exposure to foreign language in infancy can maintain non-native speech discrimination

Question 14

What is a caution about perceptual narrowing studies? (Singh et al., 2022, 2023)

Answer 14

Most research is limited in linguistic/geographic diversity
- Recent calls for more diverse sampling to test universality

Question 15

What is another domain where perceptual narrowing occurs?

Answer 15

Face processing (Lewkowicz & Ghazanfar, 2009)

Question 16

How can babies segment words from fluent speech?

Answer 16

Speech segmentation: finding word boundaries in continuous speech
- Helped by infant-directed speech and implicit discovery of cues

Question 17

What is infant-directed speech and how does it help?

Answer 17

Higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, shorter utterances, longer pauses, simplified structure
- Babies recognize and use this to find word boundaries (Singh et al., 2009)

Question 18

What is the preferential listening paradigm? (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995)

Answer 18

7.5 month olds familiarised to target words in a story
- Later, infants listen longer to target words vs novel words
- Shows early word segmentation ability

Question 19

How do prosodic cues help infants segment speech?

Answer 19

Syllable stress (in English, most words have strong-weak stress)
- 9-month olds prefer strong-weak words (Jusczyk, Cutler & Redanz, 1993)

Question 20

What is statistical learning and how does it help infants find word boundaries? (Saffran et al., 1996)

Answer 20

Infants use transitional probabilities (likelihood one syllable follows another)
- 8-month-olds can distinguish “words” from part-words after only 2 min exposure

Question 21

Describe the method and results of Saffran et al. (1996).

Answer 21

Familiarisation: 8-month-olds hear repeated sequences with “words” (syllable triplets)
- Test: infants orient longer to novel part-words than to words, showing statistical learning of boundaries

Question 22

What is “fast mapping” and who showed it?

Answer 22

Young children’s ability to learn a word from minimal exposure
- Heibeck & Markman (1987): children can rapidly acquire new word meaning

Question 23

How do infants show early word comprehension? (Tincoff & Jusczyk, 1999; Bergelson & Swingley, 2012/2015)

Answer 23

By 6 months, infants can associate “mummy”/“daddy” with correct parent (Tincoff & Jusczyk, 1999)
- By 6–9 months, infants know common nouns (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012/2015), look longer at matching object

Question 24

How is early word comprehension measured?

Answer 24

Parental report (CDI)
- Home observations/video
- Preferential looking paradigm (choose named object from array)
- Lab tasks: measure gaze to matching object

Question 25

When do children begin to understand and produce words?

Answer 25

First words understood at 6–9 months - Vocabulary accelerates after that (“vocab spurt”) - At 16 months, typically developing children understand 70–270 words

Question 26

What factors affect individual differences in early vocabulary?

Answer 26

Genetic factors - Home environment - Quantity and quality of caregiver speech

Question 27

Summary of key findings in infant language acquisition:

Answer 27

Infants sensitive to prosody and rhythm before birth - Can discriminate speech sounds from young age - Native-language exposure rapidly tunes system (perceptual narrowing) - Infants use prosody and statistical cues for word boundaries - Early word comprehension from 6 months - Vocabulary growth linked to input quality/quantity

Question 28

What are transitional probabilities and how do they help infants segment words?

Answer 28

Transitional probability: the likelihood that one syllable will follow another - Syllables within words have higher transitional probabilities than syllables between words - Infants use these statistics to detect word boundaries in fluent speech

Question 29

What did Saffran et al. (1996) find about transitional probabilities in word segmentation?

Answer 29

8-month-old infants exposed to a continuous stream of syllables (no pauses) - Words: syllable triplets with high within-word transitional probability - Part-words: sequences that crossed word boundaries (low transitional probability) - Infants listened longer to part-words, showing they used transitional probabilities to identify 'words'

Question 30

What is the importance of statistical learning in language acquisition?

Answer 30

Allows infants to segment words in continuous speech without explicit cues - Supports rapid early vocabulary growth

Question 31

What is an example of a high vs. low transitional probability?

Answer 31

In 'pretty baby,' 'pre-tty' (within word) is high probability, 'tty-ba' (across word) is low probability