Word Learning in Infant- and Adult-Directed Speech

Ma, Weiyi; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Houston, Derek M.; Hirsh‐Pasek, Kathy

doi:10.1080/15475441.2011.579839

Cited by 263 publications

(266 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…For example, infants who experienced a larger amount of IDS at home became more efficient in word processing and had a larger expressive vocabulary by 24 months of age (Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). In addition, Ma, Golinkoff, Houston, and Hirsh-Pasek (2011) showed that 21-month-olds learned novel words only from IDS, but not from ADS. From a theoretical perspective, it has been suggested that the underlying mechanism of IDS to promote language development is that it boosts attention in general (Schachner & Hannon, 2011).…”

Section: Preference For Idsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Infant-Directed Speech Enhances Attention to Speech in Deaf Infants With Cochlear Implants

Wang

Bergeson

Houston

2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: Both theoretical models of infant language acquisition and empirical studies posit important roles for attention to speech in early language development. However, deaf infants with cochlear implants (CIs) show reduced attention to speech as compared with their peers with normal hearing (NH; Horn, Davis, Pisoni, & Miyamoto, 2005;Houston, Pisoni, Kirk, Ying, & Miyamoto, 2003), which may affect their acquisition of spoken language. The main purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether infantdirected speech (IDS) enhances attention to speech in infants with CIs, as compared with adult-directed speech (ADS), and (b) whether the degree to which infants with CIs pay attention to IDS is associated with later language outcomes. Method: We tested 46 infants-12 prelingually deaf infants who received CIs before 24 months of age and had 12 months of hearing experience (CI group), 22 hearing experience-matched infants with NH (NH-HEM group), and 12 chronological age-matched infants with NH (NH-CAM group)-on their listening preference in 3 randomized blocks: IDS versus silence, ADS versus silence, and IDS versus ADS. We administered the Preschool Language Scale-Fourth Edition (PLS-4; Zimmerman, Steiner, & Pond, 2002) approximately 18 months after implantation to assess receptive and expressive language skills of infants with CIs. Results: In the IDS versus silence block, all 3 groups looked significantly longer to IDS than to silence. In the ADS versus silence block, both the NH-HEM and NH-CAM groups looked significantly longer to ADS relative to silence; however, the CI group did not show any preference. In the IDS versus ADS block, whereas both the CI and NH-HEM groups preferred IDS over ADS, the NH-CAM group looked equally long to IDS and ADS. IDS preference quotient among infants with CIs in the IDS versus ADS block was associated with PLS-4 Auditory Comprehension and PLS-4 Expressive Communication measures. Conclusions: Two major findings emerge: (a) IDS enhances attention to speech in deaf infants with CIs; (b) the degree of IDS preference over ADS relates to language development in infants with CIs. These results support a focus on input in developing intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of hearing loss on language development in infants with hearing loss.

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Section: Preference For Idsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Infant-Directed Speech Enhances Attention to Speech in Deaf Infants With Cochlear Implants

Wang

Bergeson

Houston

2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Accordingly, infant-directed speech has been shown to increase cerebral activity more than adult-directed speech [5], meaning that infants are more engaged in what is being said to them when they listen to this special speech register. Infant-directed speech has also been hypothetized to facilitate language learning [6] by supporting the construction of phonetic and vowel categories [7,8], the clearer production of consonants [3] and the acquisition of new words [9]. This role in language learning is consistent with the decrease in the use and acoustic specificity of infant-directed speech that follows the development of language skills during the first year of the child [10][11][12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Dog-directed speech: why do we use it and do dogs pay attention to it?

et al. 2017

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Pet-directed speech is strikingly similar to infant-directed speech, a peculiar speaking pattern with higher pitch and slower tempo known to engage infants' attention and promote language learning. Here, we report the first investigation of potential factors modulating the use of dog-directed speech, as well as its immediate impact on dogs' behaviour. We recorded adult participants speaking in front of pictures of puppies, adult and old dogs, and analysed the quality of their speech. We then performed playback experiments to assess dogs' reaction to dog-directed speech compared with normal speech. We found that human speakers used dog-directed speech with dogs of all ages and that the acoustic structure of dog-directed speech was mostly independent of dog age, except for sound pitch which was relatively higher when communicating with puppies. Playback demonstrated that, in the absence of other non-auditory cues, puppies were highly reactive to dog-directed speech, and that the pitch was a key factor modulating their behaviour, suggesting that this specific speech register has a functional value in young dogs. Conversely, older dogs did not react differentially to dog-directed speech compared with normal speech. The fact that speakers continue to use dog-directed with older dogs therefore suggests that this speech pattern may mainly be a spontaneous attempt to facilitate interactions with non-verbal listeners.

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“…Less likely intonation was also found to alter semantic processing of the prominent words, as measured by electrophysiological recordings (Kakouros et al 2018). In the context of IDS, the apparent prominence (saliency) of the signal, the enhanced attentional capture, the prosodic highlighting of important words, and improved learning from the input (e.g., Song, Demuth & Morgan, 2010;Ma et al, 2011;and Graf Estes & Hurley, 2013) could be therefore all based on one and the same domain-general mechanism for selective information processing instead of multiple competing goals and processes (see also Kakouros et al, 2018, for a discussion). If the acoustic cues for such communicative intents also convey positive affect, thereby further encouraging the infant to engage in social interaction, all these factors would jointly serve the purpose of boosting language learning of the child.…”

Section: Open Questions and Concluding Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is infant-directed speech interesting because it is surprising? – Linking properties of IDS to statistical learning and attention at the prosodic level

Räsänen¹,

Kakouros²,

Söderström³

2017

Preprint

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The exaggerated intonation and special rhythmic properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) have been hypothesized to attract infants' attention to the speech stream. However, there has been little work actually connecting the properties of IDS to models of attentional processing or perceptual learning. A number of such attention models suggest that surprising or novel perceptual inputs attract attention, where novelty can be operationalized as the statistical (un)predictability of the stimulus in the given context. Since prosodic patterns such as F0 contours are accessible to young infants who are also known to be adept statistical learners, the present paper investigates a hypothesis that F0 contours in IDS are less predictable than those in adult-directed speech (ADS), given previous exposure to both speaking styles, thereby potentially tapping into basic attentional mechanisms of the listeners in a similar manner that relative probabilities of other linguistic patterns are known to modulate attentional processing in infants and adults. Computational modeling analyses with naturalistic IDS and ADS speech from matched speakers and contexts show that IDS intonation has lower overall temporal predictability even when the F0 contours of both speaking styles are normalized to have equal means and variances. A closer analysis reveals that there is a tendency of IDS intonation to be less predictable at the end of short utterances, whereas ADS exhibits more stable average predictability patterns across the full extent of the utterances. The difference between IDS and ADS persists even when the proportion of IDS and ADS exposure is varied substantially, simulating different relative amounts of IDS heard in different family and cultural environments. Exposure to IDS is also found to be more efficient for predicting ADS intonation contours in new utterances than exposure to the equal amount of ADS speech. This indicates that the more variable prosodic contours of IDS also generalize to ADS, and may therefore enhance prosodic learning in infancy. Overall, the study suggests that one reason behind infant preference for IDS could be its higher information value at the prosodic level, as measured by the amount of surprisal in the F0 contours. This provides the first formal link between the properties of IDS and the models of attentional processing and statistical learning in the brain. However, this finding does not rule out the possibility that other differences between the IDS and ADS also play a role.

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Word Learning in Infant- and Adult-Directed Speech

Cited by 263 publications

References 76 publications

Infant-Directed Speech Enhances Attention to Speech in Deaf Infants With Cochlear Implants

Infant-Directed Speech Enhances Attention to Speech in Deaf Infants With Cochlear Implants

Dog-directed speech: why do we use it and do dogs pay attention to it?

Is infant-directed speech interesting because it is surprising? – Linking properties of IDS to statistical learning and attention at the prosodic level

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