A connectionist study on the role of pitch in infant-directed speech

Gauthier, Bruno; Shi, Rushen

doi:10.1121/1.3653546

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…In fact, Kuhl et al (1997) also observed somewhat greater variability, and specifically hypothesized that stretched vowel spaces allow caregivers to produce more variable vowels, and thus improve category robustness, without increasing the amount of overlap between the categories (p. 685). Such differences across categories may partially account for why some computer learning studies report improved performance with IDS training (Boer & Kuhl, 2003), others deteriorated performance (Kirchhoff & Schimmel, 2005), and still others no difference (Gauthier & Shi, 2011). However, we have also shown that the increase in variability can occur in the absence of significant stretching of the distances separating phonological categories.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The hyperarticulation hypothesis of infant-directed speech

2013

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Typically, the point vowels [i,ɑ,u] are acoustically more peripheral in infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). If caregivers seek to highlight lexically relevant contrasts in IDS, then two sounds that are contrastive should become more distinct, whereas two sounds that are surface realizations of the same underlying sound category should not. To test this prediction, vowels that are phonemically contrastive ([i-ɪ] and [eɪ-ε]), vowels that map onto the same underlying category ([æ- ] and [ε- ]), and the point vowels [i,ɑ,u] were elicited in IDS and ADS by American English mothers of two age groups of infants (four- and eleven-month-olds). As in other work, point vowels were produced in more peripheral positions in IDS compared to ADS. However, there was little evidence of hyperarticulation per se (e.g. [i-ɪ] was hypoarticulated). We suggest that across-the-board lexically based hyperarticulation is not a necessary feature of IDS

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This was the case of the [i-I] contrast in both age groups. Such differences across categories may partially account for why some computer learning studies report improved performance with IDS training (Boer & Kuhl, 2003), others deteriorated performance (Kirchhoff & Schimmel, 2005), and still others no difference (Gauthier & Shi, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The hyperarticulation hypothesis of infant-directed speech

2013

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“…In speech perception, pitch plays a role in prosody (Ohala, 1983), whereas variations in pitch provide linguistic meaning to words in tonal languages (Lee, Vakoch, & Wurm, 1996; Cutler & Chen, 1997; Ye & Connine, 1999). Pitch also plays a role in gender identification (Gelfer & Mikos, 2005) and may provide attention cues for infant-directed speech (Gauthier & Shi, 2011). In music perception, pitch is essential for melody recognition (Dowling & Fujitani, 1971; Cousineau, Demany, & Pressnitzer, 2009), and impairments in melody recognition in amusic listeners are related to deficits in pitch perception (Ayotte, Peretz, & Hyde, 2002; Peretz et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing pitch in a nonhuman mammal (Chinchilla laniger).

Shofner

Chaney²

2013

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Whether the mechanisms giving rise to pitch reflect spectral or temporal processing has long been debated. Generally, sounds having strong harmonic structures in their spectra have strong periodicities in their temporal structures. We found that when a wideband harmonic tone complex is passed through a noise vocoder, the resulting sound can have a harmonic structure with a large peak-to-valley ratio, but with little or no periodicity in the temporal structure. To test the role of harmonic structure in pitch perception for a non-human mammal, we measured behavioral responses to noise-vocoded tone complexes in chinchillas using a stimulus generalization paradigm. Animals discriminated either a harmonic tone complex or an iterated rippled noise from a 1-channel vocoded version of the tone complex. When tested with vocoded versions generated with 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 channels, responses were similar to those of the 1-channel version. Behavioral responses could not be accounted for based on harmonic peak-to-valley ratio as the acoustic cue, but could be accounted for based on temporal properties of the autocorrelation functions such as periodicity strength or the height of the first peak. The results suggest that pitch perception does not arise through spectral processing in non-human mammals, but rather through temporal processing. The conclusion that spectral processing contributes little to pitch in non-human mammals may reflect broader cochlear tuning than that described in humans.

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“…To begin with, computational models of language development can be used to understand some of these relations in vitro. For example, the potential impact of caregivers' clarity of articulation on category learning has been studied by applying learning algorithms to data drawn from infant-directed speech (e.g., Gauthier & Shi, 2011, and citations therein). Furthermore, direct manipulations can be done using animal models, which should possess at least some of the prerequisites for certain skills involved in the acquired knowledge discussed earlier in the article.…”

Section: Toward Multivariate Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Individual Variation in Language From Infant Speech Perception Measures

et al. 2013

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There are increasing reports that individual variation in behavioral and neurophysiological measures of infant speech processing predicts later language outcomes, and specifically concurrent or subsequent vocabulary size. If such findings are held up under scrutiny, they could both illuminate theoretical models of language development and contribute to the prediction of communicative disorders. A qualitative, systematic review of this emergent literature illustrated the variety of approaches that have been used and highlighted some conceptual problems regarding the measurements. A quantitative analysis of the same data established that the bivariate relation was significant, with correlations of similar strength to those found for well-established nonlinguistic predictors of language. Further exploration of infant speech perception predictors, particularly from a methodological perspective, is recommended.Research over the past five decades demonstrates that infants tune their speech perception abilities to language-specific properties of the speech they hear before their first birthday (for a recent review, see Werker & Gervain, 2013). Although most of this past work has sought to pinpoint milestones by using group averages, increasing attention is being paid to correlations between behavioral and neurophysiological measures gathered within the 1st year of life, on the one hand, and individual differences in language development, on the other (e.g., see the collection in Colombo, McCardle, & Freund, 2008;. The study of individual variation in infancy is far from new. For example, habituation and dishabituation measures have been used to assess the fit of different models of the architecture of cognitive skills (e.g., Bornstein, 1998) and to predict language, IQ, and educational outcomes longitudinally, even after several other variables have been controlled for (e.g., Bornstein et al., 2006; see also the Discussion section). Here, we discuss the potential of infant speech processing measures to predict variation in language outcomes over this backdrop of the larger field of cognitive development.Evaluating this emergent strand of research is important for two reasons. First, from a theoretical perspective, focusing on individual differences in speech perception may provide crucial insights into the relative merit of competing theoretical models. For instance, there are two large classes of theories bearing on the emergence of phonology in the 1st year of life (see review in R€ as€ anen, 2012). According to one, infants begin to learn phonology by determining which speech sound categories (which we call phones) their ambient language uses, and they later employ these units to build word formsWe are grateful to our colleagues at the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, and at both the Psychology of Language and the Genetics of Language Departments at the MPI for insightful discussions. We thank particularly the reviewers for their extremely constructive comments. Some of this work was done wi...

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A connectionist study on the role of pitch in infant-directed speech

Cited by 8 publications

References 34 publications

The hyperarticulation hypothesis of infant-directed speech

The hyperarticulation hypothesis of infant-directed speech

Processing pitch in a nonhuman mammal (Chinchilla laniger).

Predicting Individual Variation in Language From Infant Speech Perception Measures

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