Understanding the abstract role of speech in communication at 12months

Martin, Alia; Onishi, Kristine H.; Vouloumanos, Athena

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.12.003

Cited by 122 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Thus, the current findings suggest that infants in the early stages of language acquisition not only monitor ongoing third-party conversations (Augusti et al, 2010;Bakker et al, 2010;von Hofsten et al, 2009), but also expect third-party communicative acts to provoke a response. A recent looking time study showed that 12-month-olds understand that speech, as opposed to a cough or an emotional vocalization, can function to transfer information about an object to an addressee in a third-party interaction (Martin et al, 2012). The current finding complements and extends this previous study with online-processing measures by showing that infants also seem to actively anticipate that third-party addressees will respond to speech, but not to natural non-speech sounds.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Infants also appear to have some expectations toward third-party addressees of speech. Looking time measures suggest that infants expect a person addressed with a nonsense word to select the same object the speaker had previously expressed a preference for (unbeknownst to the addressee; Martin, Onishi, & Vouloumanos, 2012). These findings suggest that infants may understand speech as an action directed to another person to provoke a response, enabling them to actively anticipate how third-party verbal interactions unfold.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…However, a recent study showed that infants at 12 months expect even unfamiliar (nonsense) words to be able to convey information to a third party (e.g. Martin et al, 2012), indicating that infants' expectations toward addressees may depend only on recognizing the form of speech, but not understanding its semantic content.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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1- and 2-year-olds’ expectations about third-party communicative actions

Thorgrimsson

Fawcett

Liszkowski

2015

Infant Behavior and Development

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a b s t r a c tInfants expect people to direct actions toward objects, and they respond to actions directed to themselves, but do they have expectations about actions directed to third parties? In two experiments, we used eye tracking to investigate 1-and 2-year-olds' expectations about communicative actions addressed to a third party. Experiment 1 presented infants with videos where an adult (the Emitter) either uttered a sentence or produced non-speech sounds. The Emitter was either face-to-face with another adult (the Recipient) or the two were back-to-back. The Recipient did not respond to any of the sounds. We found that 2-, but not 1-year-olds looked quicker and longer at the Recipient following speech than nonspeech, suggesting that they expected her to respond to speech. These effects were specific to the face-to-face context. Experiment 2 presented 1-year-olds with similar face-to-face exchanges but modified to engage infants and minimize task demands. The infants looked quicker to the Recipient following speech than non-speech, suggesting that they expected a response to speech. The study suggests that by 1 year of age infants expect communicative actions to be directed at a third-party listener.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

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1- and 2-year-olds’ expectations about third-party communicative actions

Thorgrimsson

Fawcett

Liszkowski

2015

Infant Behavior and Development

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“…Further, when observing two people communicating with each other in a third-party interaction, 12-month-olds recognized that speech-but not nonspeech vocalizations-can communicate about a target object. That is, when a person (the Communicator) repeatedly grasped a target object, 12-month-olds expected that by using speech but not coughs or emotional vocalizations, the Communicator could inform a second person (the Recipient) about the target object (10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Communicator turned to the Recipient and uttered either a novel word unknown to the infants ("koba") or a cough ("xhm-xhm-xhm"). Infants who heard the novel word should infer that its meaning was understood by both the Communicator and Recipient because infants understand that language is conventional and, thus, shared between people (10,18,19) Recipient: (i) completed the Communicator's intended action (stacking the ring on the funnel; Intended), (ii) performed the Communicator's observable movements (attempting to stack the ring but failing; Observable), or (iii) completed a perceptually distinct but related stacking action that, like the Communicator's intended action, had never been shown (removing a ring already on the funnel and stacking it on the ring on the floor; Related).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Twelve-month-old infants recognize that speech can communicate unobservable intentions

Vouloumanos

Onishi

Pogue

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Much of our knowledge is acquired not from direct experience but through the speech of others. Speech allows rapid and efficient transfer of information that is otherwise not directly observable. Do infants recognize that speech, even if unfamiliar, can communicate about an important aspect of the world that cannot be directly observed: a person's intentions? Twelve-month-olds saw a person (the Communicator) attempt but fail to achieve a target action (stacking a ring on a funnel). The Communicator subsequently directed either speech or a nonspeech vocalization to another person (the Recipient) who had not observed the attempts. The Recipient either successfully stacked the ring (Intended outcome), attempted but failed to stack the ring (Observable outcome), or performed a different stacking action (Related outcome). Infants recognized that speech could communicate about unobservable intentions, looking longer at Observable and Related outcomes than the Intended outcome when the Communicator used speech. However, when the Communicator used nonspeech, infants looked equally at the three outcomes. Thus, for 12-montholds, speech can transfer information about unobservable aspects of the world such as internal mental states, which provides preverbal infants with a tool for acquiring information beyond their immediate experience. (1-4). Adult humans use speech to transmit and acquire information about aspects of their environment that are directly observable (e.g., spilling coffee) but also about unobservable internal states such as beliefs, knowledge, and desires (e.g., wanting a refill). Speech is thus a powerful means of communication, which allows for rapid and efficient transfer of information that is otherwise not directly observable. Do preverbal infants recognize that speech can communicate information about another person's internal states? Such recognition would allow infants to use others' speech as a powerful mechanism for knowledge acquisition and provide a tool for acquiring information about what has not been or cannot be directly experienced (e.g., refs. 2, 5, and 6) even before they understand the meanings of particular words. Here, we examine whether 12-month-old infants understand that speech can communicate to a second person about an intention, an internal state that cannot be directly observed.By their first birthday, infants treat speech and nonspeech as functionally distinct when individuating and categorizing objects (7-9). For example, distinct speech labels (but not distinct tones or emotional vocalizations) leads infants to expect distinct objects (9), whereas pairing multiple individual category instances with the same speech label (but not tone) helps infants detect similarities between instances and generalize to novel instances (e.g., refs. 7 and 8). Further, when observing two people communicating with each other in a third-party interaction, 12-month-olds recognized that speech-but not nonspeech vocalizations-can communicate about a target object. That is, when a person (the

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Language Comprehension in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

Byers‐Heinlein¹,

Lew‐Williams

2017

The Handbook of Psycholinguistics

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Infants and toddlers grow up in a variety of language environments -for example, some environments are monolingual and some are bilingual -but nearly all children develop the ability to understand the language(s) around them. In this chapter, we trace children's path to language comprehension, from listening in infancy, to phonetic perception, speech segmentation, word learning, vocabulary development, and finally understanding language in real time. For both monolinguals and bilinguals, developing fluency in language comprehension in infancy and toddlerhood sets the stage for later language and school success.

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Understanding the abstract role of speech in communication at 12months

Cited by 122 publications

References 69 publications

1- and 2-year-olds’ expectations about third-party communicative actions

1- and 2-year-olds’ expectations about third-party communicative actions

Twelve-month-old infants recognize that speech can communicate unobservable intentions

Language Comprehension in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

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