Linking Language and Cognition in Infancy

Perszyk, Danielle; Waxman, Sandra R.

doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011701

Cited by 80 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 146 publications

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“…The power of human language derives in large part from its inextricable link to cognition (for reviews, see [1][2][3][4]. Much of the developmental evidence concerning the acquisition of this uniquely human link has been based on the discovery that listening to language boosts infants' success in core cognitive capacities including abstract rule-learning [5] and object categorization [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birdsong fails to support object categorization in human infants

2021

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Recent evidence reveals a precocious link between language and cognition in human infants: listening to their native language supports infants’ core cognitive processes, including object categorization, and does so in a way that other acoustic signals (e.g., time-reversed speech; sine-wave tone sequences) do not. Moreover, language is not the only signal that confers this cognitive advantage: listening to vocalizations of non-human primates also supports object categorization in 3- and 4-month-olds. Here, we move beyond primate vocalizations to clarify the breadth of acoustic signals that promote infant cognition. We ask whether listening to birdsong, another naturally produced animal vocalization, also supports object categorization in 3- and 4-month-old infants. We report that listening to zebra finch song failed to confer a cognitive advantage. This outcome brings us closer to identifying a boundary condition on the range of non-linguistic acoustic signals that initially support infant cognition.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birdsong fails to support object categorization in human infants

2021

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“…Instead, very young infants must rely upon another, perhaps simpler mechanism to initiate the link to cognition. For example, simply listening to language may enhance 3- and 4-month-olds infants’ attention or arousal, and in this way boost core cognition 9 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants’ advances in speech perception shape their earliest links between language and cognition

Perszyk

Waxman

2019

Sci Rep

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The power of human language derives not only from the precision of its signal or the complexity of its grammar, but also from its links to cognition. Infants as young as 3 months have begun to link language and core cognitive capacities. At 3 and 4 months, this link is not exclusive to human language: listening to vocalizations of nonhuman primates also supports infant cognition. By 6 months, infants have tuned this link to human speech alone. Here we provide evidence that infants’ increasing precision in speech perception shapes which signals they will link to cognition. Infants listening to German, a nonnative language that shares key rhythmic and prosodic properties with their own native language (English), successfully formed object categories. In contrast, those listening to Cantonese, a language that differs considerably in these suprasegmental properties, failed. This provides the first evidence that infants’ increasingly precise perceptual tuning to the sounds of their native language sets constraints on the range of human languages they will link to cognition: infants begin to specify which human languages they will link to core cognitive capacities even before they sever the link between nonhuman primate vocalizations and cognition.

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“…The powerful connection between language and human cognition begins in infancy. Even before infants begin to produce their first words, language supports fundamental cognitive capacities (Feigenson & Halberda, ; Ferguson & Lew‐Williams, ; Ferry, Hespos, & Waxman, ; Xu, ; for a review, see Perszyk & Waxman, ). Infant object categorization serves as a strong illustration of this link: decades of research reveal that naming facilitates infants' object categorization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A little labeling goes a long way: Semi‐supervised learning in infancy

LaTourrette

Waxman

2018

Developmental Science

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There is considerable evidence that labeling supports infants' object categorization. Yet in daily life, most of the category exemplars that infants encounter will remain unlabeled. Inspired by recent evidence from machine learning, we propose that infants successfully exploit this sparsely labeled input through "semi-supervised learning." Providing only a few labeled exemplars leads infants to initiate the process of categorization, after which they can integrate all subsequent exemplars, labeled or unlabeled, into their evolving category representations. Using a classic novelty preference task, we introduced 2-year-old infants (n = 96) to a novel object category, varying whether and when its exemplars were labeled. Infants were equally successful whether all exemplars were labeled (fully supervised condition) or only the first two exemplars were labeled (semi-supervised condition), but they failed when no exemplars were labeled (unsupervised condition). Furthermore, the timing of the labeling mattered: when the labeled exemplars were provided at the end, rather than the beginning, of familiarization (reversed semi-supervised condition), infants failed to learn the category. This provides the first evidence of semi-supervised learning in infancy, revealing that infants excel at learning from exactly the kind of input that they typically receive in acquiring real-world categories and their names.

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Linking Language and Cognition in Infancy

Cited by 80 publications

References 146 publications

Birdsong fails to support object categorization in human infants

Birdsong fails to support object categorization in human infants

Infants’ advances in speech perception shape their earliest links between language and cognition

A little labeling goes a long way: Semi‐supervised learning in infancy

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