Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask
Infants have been shown to rely both on auditory and visual cues when processing speech. We investigated the impact of COVID-related changes, in particular of face masks, in early word segmentation abilities. Following up on our previous study demonstrating that, by 4 months, infants already segment...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.879123/full |
| _version_ | 1817982689258504192 |
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| author | Sónia Frota Jovana Pejovic Marisa Cruz Cátia Severino Marina Vigário |
| author_facet | Sónia Frota Jovana Pejovic Marisa Cruz Cátia Severino Marina Vigário |
| author_sort | Sónia Frota |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Infants have been shown to rely both on auditory and visual cues when processing speech. We investigated the impact of COVID-related changes, in particular of face masks, in early word segmentation abilities. Following up on our previous study demonstrating that, by 4 months, infants already segmented targets presented auditorily at utterance-edge position, and, using the same visual familiarization paradigm, 7–9-month-old infants performed an auditory and an audiovisual word segmentation experiment in two conditions: without and with an FFP2 face mask. Analysis of acoustic and visual cues showed changes in face-masked speech affecting the amount, weight, and location of cues. Utterance-edge position displayed more salient cues than utterance-medial position, but the cues were attenuated in face-masked speech. Results revealed no evidence for segmentation, not even at edge position, regardless of mask condition and auditory or visual speech presentation. However, in the audiovisual experiment, infants attended more to the screen during the test trials when familiarized with without mask speech. Also, the infants attended more to the mouth and less to the eyes in without mask than with mask. In addition, evidence for an advantage of the utterance-edge position in emerging segmentation abilities was found. Thus, audiovisual information provided some support to developing word segmentation. We compared 7–9-monthers segmentation ability observed in the Butler and Frota pre-COVID study with the current auditory without mask data. Mean looking time for edge was significantly higher than unfamiliar in the pre-COVID study only. Measures of cognitive and language development obtained with the CSBS scales showed that the infants of the current study scored significantly lower than the same-age infants from the CSBS (pre-COVID) normative data. Our results suggest an overall effect of the pandemic on early segmentation abilities and language development, calling for longitudinal studies to determine how development proceeds. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T23:23:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cd56036f0269411baa6d66175aa8ba81 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T23:23:47Z |
| publishDate | 2022-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-cd56036f0269411baa6d66175aa8ba812022-12-22T02:25:09ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782022-05-011310.3389/fpsyg.2022.879123879123Early Word Segmentation Behind the MaskSónia FrotaJovana PejovicMarisa CruzCátia SeverinoMarina VigárioInfants have been shown to rely both on auditory and visual cues when processing speech. We investigated the impact of COVID-related changes, in particular of face masks, in early word segmentation abilities. Following up on our previous study demonstrating that, by 4 months, infants already segmented targets presented auditorily at utterance-edge position, and, using the same visual familiarization paradigm, 7–9-month-old infants performed an auditory and an audiovisual word segmentation experiment in two conditions: without and with an FFP2 face mask. Analysis of acoustic and visual cues showed changes in face-masked speech affecting the amount, weight, and location of cues. Utterance-edge position displayed more salient cues than utterance-medial position, but the cues were attenuated in face-masked speech. Results revealed no evidence for segmentation, not even at edge position, regardless of mask condition and auditory or visual speech presentation. However, in the audiovisual experiment, infants attended more to the screen during the test trials when familiarized with without mask speech. Also, the infants attended more to the mouth and less to the eyes in without mask than with mask. In addition, evidence for an advantage of the utterance-edge position in emerging segmentation abilities was found. Thus, audiovisual information provided some support to developing word segmentation. We compared 7–9-monthers segmentation ability observed in the Butler and Frota pre-COVID study with the current auditory without mask data. Mean looking time for edge was significantly higher than unfamiliar in the pre-COVID study only. Measures of cognitive and language development obtained with the CSBS scales showed that the infants of the current study scored significantly lower than the same-age infants from the CSBS (pre-COVID) normative data. Our results suggest an overall effect of the pandemic on early segmentation abilities and language development, calling for longitudinal studies to determine how development proceeds.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.879123/fullearly word segmentationface maskCOVID-19auditory speechaudiovisual speechspeech perception |
| spellingShingle | Sónia Frota Jovana Pejovic Marisa Cruz Cátia Severino Marina Vigário Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask Frontiers in Psychology early word segmentation face mask COVID-19 auditory speech audiovisual speech speech perception |
| title | Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask |
| title_full | Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask |
| title_fullStr | Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask |
| title_full_unstemmed | Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask |
| title_short | Early Word Segmentation Behind the Mask |
| title_sort | early word segmentation behind the mask |
| topic | early word segmentation face mask COVID-19 auditory speech audiovisual speech speech perception |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.879123/full |
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