ERIC Number: EJ905497
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1525-0008
EISSN: N/A
Distributional Phonetic Learning at 10 Months of Age
Yoshida, Katherine A.; Pons, Ferran; Maye, Jessica; Werker, Janet F.
Infancy, v15 n4 p420-433 Jul-Aug 2010
Infant phonetic perception reorganizes in accordance with the native language by 10 months of age. One mechanism that may underlie this perceptual change is distributional learning, a statistical analysis of the distributional frequency of speech sounds. Previous distributional learning studies have tested infants of 6-8 months, an age at which native phonetic categories have not yet developed. Here, three experiments test infants of 10 months to help illuminate perceptual ability following perceptual reorganization. English-learning infants did not change discrimination in response to nonnative speech sound distributions from either a voicing distinction (Experiment 1) or a place-of-articulation distinction (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, familiarization to the place-of-articulation distinction was doubled to increase the amount of exposure, and in this case infants began discriminating the sounds. These results extend the processes of distributional learning to a new phonetic contrast, and reveal that at 10 months of age, distributional phonetic learning remains effective, but is more difficult than before perceptual reorganization. (Contains 2 footnote, 3 tables, and 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Articulation (Speech), Phonetics, Toddlers, Infants, Statistical Analysis, Perceptual Development, Auditory Discrimination, Speech Communication, Familiarity, Language Acquisition
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A