Weighting of vowel cues explains patterns of word–object associative learning

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that infants under 17 months have difficulty learning novel words in the laboratory when the words differ by only one consonant sound, irrespective of the magnitude of that difference. The current study explored whether 15-month-old infants can learn novel words that differ in only one vowel sound. The rich acoustic/phonetic properties of vowels allow for a detailed analysis of the contribution of acoustic/phonetic cues to infants' performance with similar-sounding words. Infants succeeded with the vowel pair /i/-/I/, but failed with vowel pairs /i/-/u/ and /I/-/u/. These results suggest that infants initially use the most salient acoustic cues for vowels and that this staged use of acoustic cues both predicts and explains why infants can learn some words that differ in only a single vowel.

Spoken word recognition in early childhood: Comparative effects of vowel, consonant and lexical tone variation

“…Floccia, Nazzi, Delle Luche, Poltrock, & Goslin, 2013;Mani & Plunkett, 2007). In the case of both vowels and consonants, sensitivity to mispronunciations appears to vary depending on the specific contrast used (Curtin, Fennell, & Escudero, 2009;Mani, Coleman, & Plunkett, 2008;, 2011Van der Feest, 2007;White & Morgan, 2008). Mispronunciation studies are not limited to infants and toddlers: in a study assessing mispronunciations in preschoolers, they demonstrate a transient phase of comparable sensitivity to vowel and consonant changes (Havy, Bertoncini, & Nazzi, 2011).…”

Word learning and phonetic processing in preschool-age children

“…Several studies on English-learning infants showed that they are able to learn words differing only by one consonant feature as early as 14 months (Yoshida, Fennell, Swingley, & Werker, 2009) to 17 months of age (Werker, Fennell, Corcoran, & Stager, 2002). However, for vowels, infants sometimes succeeded by 14/15 months of age when the words differed by several features (Curtin, Fennell, & Escudero, 2009;Mani & Plunkett, 2008), but there is no evidence so far that they succeed with one-feature contrasts before 18 months of age (Dietrich, Swingley, & Werker, 2007). A similar asymmetry was found for French-speaking infants during the same age period using object manipulation tasks.…”

Consonantes, vocales y niveles de especificación en las representaciones fonológicas del primer léxico: una revisión

“…Clearly, a significant number of research results indicate that vowels are phonologically specified in the lexicon (Dietrich, Swingley, and Werker, 2007;Plunkett, 2007, 2010;Ramon-Casas et al, 2009;Swingley and Aslin, 2000). But, it is also true that certain acoustic dimensions may have an earlier representation than others (Curtin, Fennell and Escudero, 2009;Mani, Coleman and Plunkett, 2008), in the same way as the voicing dimension for consonants is possibly less well specified in the early lexicon (Mani and Plunkett, 2010;Van der Feest, 2007). However, the observation of a consonantal bias in certain tasks, but not in others, points to a different level of analysis, as it suggests differences in the use anales de psicología, 2014, vol.…”

“…More specifically, vowels need to differ in more than one dimension to observe a differential response in the child's attentional behavior . Changes in height dimension are detected earlier than changes in backness or roundness, from 15 months of age (Curtin et al, 2009).…”

“…Results have shown some difficulties in toddlers below 18 months of age (Curtin, Fennell and Escudero, 2009;. More specifically, vowels need to differ in more than one dimension to observe a differential response in the child's attentional behavior .…”