Rapid gains in segmenting fluent speech when words match the rhythmic unit: evidence from infants acquiring syllable-timed languages

Abstract

The ability to extract word-forms from sentential contexts represents an initial step in infants' process toward lexical acquisition. By age 6 months the ability is just emerging and evidence of it is restricted to certain testing conditions. Most research has been developed with infants acquiring stress-timed languages (English, but also German and Dutch) whose rhythmic unit is not the syllable. Data from infants acquiring syllable-timed languages are still scarce and limited to French (European and Canadian), partially revealing some discrepancies with English regarding the age at which word segmentation ability emerges. Research reported here aims at broadening this cross-linguistic perspective by presenting first data on the early ability to segment monosyllabic word-forms by infants acquiring Spanish and Catalan. Three different language groups (two monolingual and one bilingual) and two different age groups (8- and 6-month-old infants) were tested using natural language and a modified version of the HPP with familiarization to passages and testing on words. Results revealed positive evidence of word segmentation in all groups at both ages, but critically, the pattern of preference differed by age. A novelty preference was obtained in the older groups, while the expected familiarity preference was only found at the younger age tested, suggesting more advanced segmentation ability with an increase in age. These results offer first evidence of an early ability for monosyllabic word segmentation in infants acquiring syllable-timed languages such as Spanish or Catalan, not previously described in the literature. Data show no impact of bilingual exposure in the emergence of this ability and results suggest rapid gains in early segmentation for words that match the rhythm unit of the native language.

Early Speech Segmentation in French-learning Infants: Monosyllabic Words versus Embedded Syllables

“…Our results extend from Spanish and Catalan to French, the finding that 6-month-olds learning a syllable-based language are able to segment monosyllabic words (Bosch et al, 2013). To further explore syllabic segmentation at 6 months in French, in a situation in which 8…”

“…Secondly, it sought to determine whether these abilities can be found in infants as young as in Bosch et al (2013), that is, at 6 months. Experiments 2 and 3 then explored whether French-learning 6-month-olds can segment syllables embedded in bisyllabic words in order to confirm the rhythmic-based segmentation hypothesis (Nazzi et al, 2006).…”

Preschoolers’ credulity toward misinformation from ingroup versus outgroup speakers

“…All children were Caucasian native English-speaking monolinguals. A child was ''monolingual" if he or she spoke English at least 75% of the time, based on the commonly used criteria in the literature (e.g., Bosch, Figueras, Teixidó, & Ramon-Casas, 2013;Souza, Byers-Heinlein, & PoulinDubois, 2013). The adult was either a Caucasian native English speaker (race-and-accent ingroup) or an East Asian accented English speaker (race-and-accent outgroup).…”

A computational model to investigate assumptions in the headturn preference procedure

“…Almost invariably, HPP studies use the familiarization-followed-by-test design briefly outlined above, where listening time during the test phase is the behavioral measure (c.f., Section 2 for further details). Subsequent studies have replicated the original finding with infants learning French (Nazzi et al, 2013), Spanish (Bosch et al, 2013), and many other languages. Others have used the HPP to shed light on the influence of various extra-linguistic factors in the processing of speech signals.…”