Two-year-olds’ sensitivity to subphonemic mismatch during online spoken word recognition

Abstract

Sensitivity to noncontrastive subphonemic detail plays an important role in adult speech processing, but little is known about children's use of this information during online word recognition. In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigate 2-year-olds' sensitivity to a specific type of subphonemic detail: coarticulatory mismatch. In Experiment 1, toddlers viewed images of familiar objects (e.g., a boat and a book) while hearing labels containing appropriate or inappropriate coarticulation. Inappropriate coarticulation was created by cross-splicing the coda of the target word onto the onset of another word that shared the same onset and nucleus (e.g., to create boat, the final consonant of boat was cross-spliced onto the initial CV of bone). We tested 24-month-olds and 29-month-olds in this paradigm. Both age groups behaved similarly, readily detecting the inappropriate coarticulation (i.e., showing better recognition of identity-spliced than cross-spliced items). In Experiment 2, we asked how children's sensitivity to subphonemic mismatch compared to their sensitivity to phonemic mismatch. Twenty-nine-month-olds were presented with targets that contained either a phonemic (e.g., the final consonant of boat was spliced onto the initial CV of bait) or a subphonemic mismatch (e.g., the final consonant of boat was spliced onto the initial CV of bone). Here, the subphonemic (coarticulatory) mismatch was not nearly as disruptive to children's word recognition as a phonemic mismatch. Taken together, our findings support the view that 2-year-olds, like adults, use subphonemic information to optimize online word recognition.

The role of long-distance phonological processes in spoken word recognition: A preliminary investigation

“…Results showed that participants fixated faster on the target image when the recording contained assimilated nasal consonants, suggesting that participants used their knowledge of this process to anticipate the identity of an upcoming consonant. Similar effects have been found for other cues as well, including vowel formant transitions (Dahan et al 2001;Salverda et al 2014;Mahr et al 2015;Paquette-Smith et al 2016), vowel nasalization (Beddor et al 2013;Paquette-Smith et al 2016;Zamuner et al 2016, Desmeules-Trudel andZamuner 2019), and segment duration (Salverda et al 2003;Blazej and Cohen-Goldberg 2015).…”

“…The long-distance nature of sibilant harmony and other types of consonant harmony is of particular interest when we consider its potential to facilitate language processing. A growing body of research has demonstrated that during spoken word recognition, listeners can use a variety of cues to anticipate an upcoming sound before it is realized (Dahan et al 2001;Salverda et al 2003Salverda et al , 2014Gow and McMurray 2007;Beddor et al 2013;Mahr et al 2015;Blazej and Cohen-Goldberg 2015;Paquette-Smith et al 2016;Zamuner et al 2016, Desmeules-Trudel andZamuner 2019). This literature, however, has focused on local dependencies between adjacent segments, as opposed to long-distance phenomena.…”

Targeted adaptation in infants following live exposure to an accented talker

“…Indeed, the phonetic transcriptions (reported in Appendix A) indicate that the Australian accent deviated from Canadian English on more of the target words compared to the Mandarin-accented English speaker. That being said, phonetic transcriptions do not fully capture pronunciation differences between accents, and we know young children are sensitive to sub-phonemic differences in the pronunciation of speech sounds (Paquette-Smith, Fecher & Johnson, 2016). Moreover, the results of Experiment 3 do not support the notion that the Mandarin speaker was easier to comprehend.…”

Monolingual and bilingual children's processing of coarticulation cues during spoken word recognition

“…Coarticulation processing in adults and children Coarticulation and phonetic variability impact spoken word recognition in adults (Archibald & Joanisse, 2011;Beddor, McGowan, Boland, Coetzee & Basher, 2013;Dahan, Magnuson, Tanenhaus & Hogan, 2001;Desmeules-Trudel & Zamuner, 2019;Gow, 2003;McMurray, Clayards, Tanenhaus & Aslin, 2008;McMurray, Tanenhaus & Aslin, 2002;Salverda, Kleinschmidt & Tanenhaus, 2014) and children (Cross & Joanisse, 2018;Johnson & Jusczyk, 2001;Mahr, McMillan, Saffran, Weismer & Edwards, 2015;Paquette-Smith, Fecher & Johnson, 2016;Zamuner, Moore & Desmeules-Trudel, 2016). One coarticulatory phenomenon that influences auditory word recognition in monolingual English-speaking adults and young children is vowel nasalization (Beddor et al, 2013;Zamuner et al, 2016).…”

“…When it comes to bilingual children's perception of phonetic properties that are present in both of their languages (e.g., vowel nasalization for English–French bilinguals, however with different phonological status in their languages), little is known concerning the perception of sublexical (e.g., coarticulatory) information. However, we know that young monolingual children's word recognition patterns are significantly influenced by coarticulation (Paquette-Smith et al, 2016; Zamuner et al, 2016) and bilingual children can maintain sensitivity to phonetic properties in more than one language (Burns et al, 2007; Kuhl et al, 2008; Ramon-Casas et al, 2017; Sundara et al, 2006).…”