Exposure to multiple accents supports infants’ understanding of novel accents

Abstract

Accented speech poses a challenge for listeners, particularly those with limited knowledge of their language. In a series of studies, we explored the possibility that experience with variability, specifically the variability provided by multiple accents, would facilitate infants' comprehension of speech produced with an unfamiliar accent. 15- and 18-month-old American-English learning infants were exposed to brief passages of multi-talker speech and subsequently tested on their ability to distinguish between real, familiar words and nonsense words, produced in either their native accent or an unfamiliar (British) accent. Exposure passages were produced in a familiar (American) accent, a single unfamiliar (British) accent or a variety of novel accents (Australian, Southern, Indian). While 15-month-olds successfully recognized real words spoken in a familiar accent, they never demonstrated comprehension of English words produced in the unfamiliar accent. 18-month-olds also failed to recognize English words spoken in the unfamiliar accent after exposure to the familiar or single unfamiliar accent. However, they succeeded after exposure to multiple unfamiliar accents, suggesting that as they get older, infants are better able to exploit the cues provided by variable speech. Increased variability across multiple dimensions can be advantageous for young listeners.

Processing of unfamiliar accents in monolingual and bilingual children: effects of type and amount of accent experience

“…The benefit of experience with regional accents in our study, however, suggests that variability in the input may lead to a more flexible mapping of accented word forms onto stored representations. This is in line with some previous studies suggesting that exposure to multiple accents benefits understanding of novel accents (Baese-Berk et al, 2013;Clopper, 2014), and that this benefit is already present in infancy (Potter & Saffran, 2017). Lexical representations in children with more accent experience might not be as fixed as in children with less accent experience.…”

“…For a given period of time children whose input consists of many different accents would have greater experience with phonological variation than those exposed to one single accent. Potter and Saffran (2017) have shown that young children's recognition of unfamiliarly accented words benefits from short-term exposure to multiple varieties as compared to only two varieties. We did not include the number of accents children were exposed to in our measure of accent experience because most of the children were exposed to one regional accent (Swabian in all cases but three) in addition to Standard German.…”

Processing and Comprehension of Accented Speech by Monolingual and Bilingual Children

“…In general, the results of our study indicate only a very subtle effect of Spanish language experience on children’s processing of Spanish-accented English. This finding is rather surprising in light of the findings yielded by studies that have tested comprehension of accented speech following short-term accent exposure (Bradlow & Bent, 2008; Clarke & Garrett, 2004; Potter & Saffran, 2017; Schmale, Crista, & Seidl, 2012). These studies show rapid adaption to accented speech comprehension, with participants improving in their processing of accented speech with very little exposure to it.…”

Targeted adaptation in infants following live exposure to an accented talker

“…Other studies have suggested that pre-exposure to multiple different accents can also, in some circumstances, facilitate adaptation. For example, in a recent listening preference study, Potter and Saffran (2017) demonstrated that 18-month-olds, but not 15-month-olds, were able to recognize known words in a novel, unfamiliar accent (British English) after exposure to a mixture of different unfamiliar accents (but note that pre-exposure to British English on its own was not sufficient to elicit recognition).…”