Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study.
An important mechanism for learning speech sounds in the first year of life is ‘distributional learning’, i.e., learning by simply listening to the frequency distributions of the speech sounds in the environment. In the lab, fast distributional learning has been reported for infants in the second ha...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2014-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00077/full |
| _version_ | 1818606469151457280 |
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| author | Karin eWanrooij Paul eBoersma Titia eVan Zuijen |
| author_facet | Karin eWanrooij Paul eBoersma Titia eVan Zuijen |
| author_sort | Karin eWanrooij |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | An important mechanism for learning speech sounds in the first year of life is ‘distributional learning’, i.e., learning by simply listening to the frequency distributions of the speech sounds in the environment. In the lab, fast distributional learning has been reported for infants in the second half of the first year; the present study examined whether it can also be demonstrated at a much younger age, long before the onset of language-specific speech perception (which roughly emerges between 6 and 12 months). To investigate this, Dutch infants aged 2 to 3 months were presented with either a unimodal or a bimodal vowel distribution based on the English /æ/~/ε/ contrast, for only twelve minutes. Subsequently, mismatch responses (MMRs) were measured in an oddball paradigm, where one half of the infants in each group heard a representative [æ] as the standard and a representative [ε] as the deviant, and the other half heard the same reversed. The results (from the combined MMRs during wakefulness and active sleep) disclosed a larger MMR, implying better discrimination of [æ] and [ε], for bimodally than unimodally trained infants, thus extending an effect of distributional training found in previous behavioral research to a much younger age when speech perception is still universal rather than language-specific, and to a new method (ERP). Moreover, the analysis revealed a robust interaction between the distribution (unimodal vs. bimodal) and the identity of the standard stimulus ([æ] vs. [ε]), which provides evidence for an interplay between a perceptual asymmetry and distributional learning. The outcomes show that distributional learning can affect vowel perception already in the first months of life. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-16T14:11:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-267c472930e347009c5bd166afa9c5a8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-16T14:11:21Z |
| publishDate | 2014-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-267c472930e347009c5bd166afa9c5a82022-12-21T22:28:45ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782014-02-01510.3389/fpsyg.2014.0007774641Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study.Karin eWanrooij0Paul eBoersma1Titia eVan Zuijen2University of AmsterdamUniversity of AmsterdamUniversity of AmsterdamAn important mechanism for learning speech sounds in the first year of life is ‘distributional learning’, i.e., learning by simply listening to the frequency distributions of the speech sounds in the environment. In the lab, fast distributional learning has been reported for infants in the second half of the first year; the present study examined whether it can also be demonstrated at a much younger age, long before the onset of language-specific speech perception (which roughly emerges between 6 and 12 months). To investigate this, Dutch infants aged 2 to 3 months were presented with either a unimodal or a bimodal vowel distribution based on the English /æ/~/ε/ contrast, for only twelve minutes. Subsequently, mismatch responses (MMRs) were measured in an oddball paradigm, where one half of the infants in each group heard a representative [æ] as the standard and a representative [ε] as the deviant, and the other half heard the same reversed. The results (from the combined MMRs during wakefulness and active sleep) disclosed a larger MMR, implying better discrimination of [æ] and [ε], for bimodally than unimodally trained infants, thus extending an effect of distributional training found in previous behavioral research to a much younger age when speech perception is still universal rather than language-specific, and to a new method (ERP). Moreover, the analysis revealed a robust interaction between the distribution (unimodal vs. bimodal) and the identity of the standard stimulus ([æ] vs. [ε]), which provides evidence for an interplay between a perceptual asymmetry and distributional learning. The outcomes show that distributional learning can affect vowel perception already in the first months of life.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00077/fullSpeech PerceptionERPlanguage acquisitioncategory learningDistributional learninginfant MMR (mismatch response) |
| spellingShingle | Karin eWanrooij Paul eBoersma Titia eVan Zuijen Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. Frontiers in Psychology Speech Perception ERP language acquisition category learning Distributional learning infant MMR (mismatch response) |
| title | Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. |
| title_full | Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. |
| title_fullStr | Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. |
| title_short | Fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2-to-3-month old infants: an ERP study. |
| title_sort | fast phonetic learning occurs already in 2 to 3 month old infants an erp study |
| topic | Speech Perception ERP language acquisition category learning Distributional learning infant MMR (mismatch response) |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00077/full |
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