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Mousley VL, MacSweeney M, Mercure E. Revisiting perceptual sensitivity to non-native speech in a diverse sample of bilinguals. Infant Behav Dev 2024; 76:101959. [PMID: 38781790 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101959] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2024] [Revised: 04/18/2024] [Accepted: 05/12/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
Werker and Tees (1984) prompted decades of research attempting to detail the paths infants take towards specialisation for the sounds of their native language(s). Most of this research has examined the trajectories of monolingual children. However, it has also been proposed that bilinguals, who are exposed to greater phonetic variability than monolinguals and must learn the rules of two languages, may remain perceptually open to non-native language sounds later into life than monolinguals. Using a visual habituation paradigm, the current study tests this question by comparing 15- to 18-month-old monolingual and bilingual children's developmental trajectories for non-native phonetic consonant contrast discrimination. A novel approach to the integration of stimulus presentation software with eye-tracking software was validated for objective measurement of infant looking time. The results did not support the hypothesis of a protracted period of sensitivity to non-native phonetic contrasts in bilingual compared to monolingual infants. Implications for diversification of perceptual narrowing research and implementation of increasingly sensitive measures are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria L Mousley
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.
| | - Mairéad MacSweeney
- Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, London WC1H 0PD, United Kingdom; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom.
| | - Evelyne Mercure
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, United Kingdom.
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2
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Kalashnikova M, Singh L, Tsui A, Altuntas E, Burnham D, Cannistraci R, Chin NB, Feng Y, Fernández-Merino L, Götz A, Gustavsson L, Hay J, Höhle B, Kager R, Lai R, Liu L, Marklund E, Nazzi T, Oliveira DS, Olstad AMH, Picaud A, Schwarz IC, Tsao FM, Wong PCM, Woo PJ. The development of tone discrimination in infancy: Evidence from a cross-linguistic, multi-lab report. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13459. [PMID: 37987377 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13459] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2019] [Revised: 10/23/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 11/22/2023]
Abstract
We report the findings of a multi-language and multi-lab investigation of young infants' ability to discriminate lexical tones as a function of their native language, age and language experience, as well as of tone properties. Given the high prevalence of lexical tones across human languages, understanding lexical tone acquisition is fundamental for comprehensive theories of language learning. While there are some similarities between the developmental course of lexical tone perception and that of vowels and consonants, findings for lexical tones tend to vary greatly across different laboratories. To reconcile these differences and to assess the developmental trajectory of native and non-native perception of tone contrasts, this study employed a single experimental paradigm with the same two pairs of Cantonese tone contrasts (perceptually similar vs. distinct) across 13 laboratories in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North-America testing 5-, 10- and 17-month-old monolingual (tone, pitch-accent, non-tone) and bilingual (tone/non-tone, non-tone/non-tone) infants. Across the age range and language backgrounds, infants who were not exposed to Cantonese showed robust discrimination of the two non-native lexical tone contrasts. Contrary to this overall finding, the statistical model assessing native discrimination by Cantonese-learning infants failed to yield significant effects. These findings indicate that lexical tone sensitivity is maintained from 5 to 17 months in infants acquiring tone and non-tone languages, challenging the generalisability of the existing theoretical accounts of perceptual narrowing in the first months of life. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This is a multi-language and multi-lab investigation of young infants' ability to discriminate lexical tones. This study included data from 13 laboratories testing 5-, 10-, and 17-month-old monolingual (tone, pitch-accent, non-tone) and bilingual (tone/non-tone, non-tone/non-tone) infants. Overall, infants discriminated a perceptually similar and a distinct non-native tone contrast, although there was no evidence of a native tone-language advantage in discrimination. These results demonstrate maintenance of tone discrimination throughout development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina Kalashnikova
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | | | - Eylem Altuntas
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
| | - Denis Burnham
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
| | - Ryan Cannistraci
- Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
- Department of Psychology, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Ng Bee Chin
- Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Ye Feng
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Department of Linguistics, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China
| | - Laura Fernández-Merino
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
- University of Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Antonia Götz
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
- Linguistics Department, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Lisa Gustavsson
- Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Jessica Hay
- Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Barbara Höhle
- Linguistics Department, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - René Kager
- Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- Institute for Language Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
| | - Regine Lai
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Liquan Liu
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
- School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
- Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian Research Council, Canberra, Australia
- Center of Multilingualism across the Lifespan, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Ellen Marklund
- Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Thierry Nazzi
- INCC, CNRS Paris, Paris, France
- Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | | | | | - Anthony Picaud
- INCC, CNRS Paris, Paris, France
- Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Iris-Corinna Schwarz
- Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- Department of Special Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Feng-Ming Tsao
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- Imaging Center for Integrated Body, Mind and Culture Research, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Patrick C M Wong
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Pei Jun Woo
- Department of Psychology, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
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3
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Nematova S, Zinszer B, Jasinska KK. Exploring audiovisual speech perception in monolingual and bilingual children in Uzbekistan. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 239:105808. [PMID: 37972516 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105808] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2023] [Revised: 10/05/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the development of audiovisual speech perception in monolingual Uzbek-speaking and bilingual Uzbek-Russian-speaking children, focusing on the impact of language experience on audiovisual speech perception and the role of visual phonetic (i.e., mouth movements corresponding to phonetic/lexical information) and temporal (i.e., timing of speech signals) cues. A total of 321 children aged 4 to 10 years in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, discriminated /ba/ and /da/ syllables across three conditions: auditory-only, audiovisual phonetic (i.e., sound accompanied by mouth movements), and audiovisual temporal (i.e., sound onset/offset accompanied by mouth opening/closing). Effects of modality (audiovisual phonetic, audiovisual temporal, or audio-only cues), age, group (monolingual or bilingual), and their interactions were tested using a Bayesian regression model. Overall, older participants performed better than younger participants. Participants performed better in the audiovisual phonetic modality compared with the auditory modality. However, no significant difference between monolingual and bilingual children was observed across all modalities. This finding stands in contrast to earlier studies. We attribute the contrasting findings of our study and the existing literature to the cross-linguistic similarity of the language pairs involved. When the languages spoken by bilinguals exhibit substantial linguistic similarity, there may be an increased necessity to disambiguate speech signals, leading to a greater reliance on audiovisual cues. The limited phonological similarity between Uzbek and Russian might have minimized bilinguals' need to rely on visual speech cues, contributing to the lack of group differences in our study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shakhlo Nematova
- Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
| | - Benjamin Zinszer
- Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA
| | - Kaja K Jasinska
- Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada
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4
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Berdasco-Muñoz E, Biran V, Nazzi T. Probing the Impact of Prematurity on Segmentation Abilities in the Context of Bilingualism. Brain Sci 2023; 13:brainsci13040568. [PMID: 37190533 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13040568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2023] [Revised: 03/09/2023] [Accepted: 03/24/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Infants born prematurely are at a high risk of developing linguistic deficits. In the current study, we compare how full-term and healthy preterm infants without neuro-sensorial impairments segment words from fluent speech, an ability crucial for lexical acquisition. While early word segmentation abilities have been found in monolingual infants, we test here whether it is also the case for French-dominant bilingual infants with varying non-dominant languages. These bilingual infants were tested on their ability to segment monosyllabic French words from French sentences at 6 months of (postnatal) age, an age at which both full-term and preterm monolinguals are able to segment these words. Our results establish the existence of segmentation skills in these infants, with no significant difference in performance between the two maturation groups. Correlation analyses failed to find effects of gestational age in the preterm group, as well as effects of the language dominance within the bilingual groups. These findings indicate that monosyllabic word segmentation, which has been found to emerge by 4 months in monolingual French-learning infants, is a robust ability acquired at an early age even in the context of bilingualism and prematurity. Future studies should further probe segmentation abilities in more extreme conditions, such as in bilinguals tested in their non-dominant language, in preterm infants with medical issues, or testing the segmentation of more complex word structures.
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5
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Mateu V, Sundara M. Spanish input accelerates bilingual infants' segmentation of English words. Cognition 2021; 218:104936. [PMID: 34678682 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2019] [Revised: 10/06/2021] [Accepted: 10/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
We asked whether increased exposure to iambs, two-syllable words with stress on the second syllable (e.g., guitar), by way of another language - Spanish - facilitates English learning infants' segmentation of iambs. Spanish has twice as many iambic words (40%) compared to English (20%). Using the Headturn Preference Procedure we tested bilingual Spanish and English learning 8-month-olds' ability to segment English iambs. Monolingual English learning infants succeed at this task only by 11 months. We showed that at 8 months, bilingual Spanish and English learning infants successfully segmented English iambs, and not simply the stressed syllable, unlike their monolingual English learning peers. At the same age, bilingual infants failed to segment Spanish iambs, just like their monolingual Spanish peers. These results cannot be explained by bilingual infants' reliance on transitional probability cues to segment words in both their native languages because statistical cues were comparable in the two languages. Instead, based on their accelerated development, we argue for autonomous but interdependent development of the two languages of bilingual infants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria Mateu
- Department of Spanish & Portuguese, University of California Los Angeles, United States of America
| | - Megha Sundara
- Department of Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles, United States of America.
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6
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Ortega-Llebaria M, Wu Z. Chinese-English Speakers' Perception of Pitch in Their Non-Tonal Language: Reinterpreting English as a Tonal-Like Language. LANGUAGE AND SPEECH 2021; 64:467-487. [PMID: 31898931 DOI: 10.1177/0023830919894606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Changing the F0-contour of English words does not change their lexical meaning. However, it changes the meaning in tonal languages such as Mandarin. Given this important difference and knowing that words in the two languages of a bilingual lexicon interact, the question arises as to how Mandarin-English speakers process pitch in their bilingual lexicon. The few studies that addressed this question showed that Mandarin-English speakers did not perceive pitch in English words as native English speakers did. These studies, however, used English words as stimuli failing to examine nonwords and Mandarin words. Consequently, possible pre-lexical effects and L1 transfer were not ruled out. The present study fills this gap by examining pitch perception in Mandarin and English words and nonwords by Mandarin-English speakers and a group of native English controls. Results showed the tonal experience of Chinese-English speakers modulated their perception of pitch in their non-tonal language at both pre-lexical and lexical levels. In comparison to native English controls, tonal speakers were more sensitive to the acoustic salience of F0-contours in the pre-lexical processing due to top-down feedback. At the lexical level, Mandarin-English speakers organized words in their two languages according to similarity criteria based on both F0 and segmental information, whereas only the segmental information was relevant to the control group. These results in perception together with consistently reported production patterns in previous literature suggest that Mandarin-English speakers process pitch in English as if it was a one-tone language.
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7
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Althaus N, Wetterlin A, Lahiri A. Features of low functional load in mono- and bilinguals' lexical access: evidence from Swedish tonal accent. PHONETICA 2021; 78:175-199. [PMID: 33979904 DOI: 10.1515/phon-2021-2002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Swedish makes use of tonal accents (Accents 1 and 2) to contrast words, but the functional load is very low, with some regional dialects not even exhibiting the contrast. In particular given the low number of minimal pairs, the question is whether tonal word accent is used in lexical access. Here we present two cross-modal fragment semantic priming studies in order to address this question. Both experiments use first syllable fragments in order to prime semantically related targets. Experiment 1 utilises words whose first syllable occurs with both accent patterns, creating a situation in which there is lexical competition between words that differ solely in terms of accent. Experiment 2 removes this competition by using words that have no such accent competitors. Our results show that native speakers of Swedish use tonal word accent in lexical access: Accent mispronunciations failed to prime semantically related targets, regardless of whether primes had accent competitors or not. Results for a group of early bilingual speakers (who grew up with one Swedish-speaking parent and one other non-tonal language) showed no differences in processing compared to the monolinguals. This indicates that the extraction of accent features during acquisition and their use in lexical access is robust, even in a scenario where multiple input languages lead to tonal word accent being a useful feature for only some of the lexical items that are being acquired. There is no doubt that the accent system is well entrenched into the bilinguals' phonological system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadja Althaus
- School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
- Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Allison Wetterlin
- Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Department of Foreign Languages and Translation, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
| | - Aditi Lahiri
- Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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8
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Tsui ASM, Erickson LC, Mallikarjunn A, Thiessen ED, Fennell CT. Dual language statistical word segmentation in infancy: Simulating a language-mixing bilingual environment. Dev Sci 2020; 24:e13050. [PMID: 33063938 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2019] [Revised: 08/24/2020] [Accepted: 10/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Infants are sensitive to syllable co-occurrence probabilities when segmenting words from fluent speech. However, segmenting two languages overlapping at the syllabic level is challenging because the statistical cues across the languages are incongruent. Successful segmentation, thus, relies on infants' ability to separate language inputs and track the statistics of each language. Here, we report three experiments investigating how infants statistically segment words from two overlapping languages in a simulated language-mixing bilingual environment. In the first two experiments, we investigated whether 9.5-month-olds can use French and English phonetic markers to segment words from two overlapping artificial languages produced by one individual. After showing that infants could segment the languages when the languages were presented in isolation (Experiment 1), we presented infants with two interleaved languages differing in phonetic cues (Experiment 2). Both monolingual and bilingual infants successfully segmented words from one of the two languages-the language heard last during familiarization. In Experiment 3, a conceptual replication, we replicated the findings of Experiment 2 with a different population and with different cues. As before, when 12-month-old monolingual infants heard two interleaved languages differing in English and Finnish phonetic cues, they learned only the last language heard during familiarization. Together, our findings suggest that segmenting words in a language-mixing environment is challenging, but infants possess a nascent ability to recruit phonetic cues to segment words from one of two overlapping languages in a bilingual-like environment. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pNcpxZguw.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angeline Sin Mei Tsui
- School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.,Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | | | | | - Erik D Thiessen
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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9
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Morett LM. The Influence of Tonal and Atonal Bilingualism on Children's Lexical and Non-Lexical Tone Perception. LANGUAGE AND SPEECH 2020; 63:221-241. [PMID: 30859898 DOI: 10.1177/0023830919834679] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
This study examined how bilingualism in an atonal language, in addition to a tonal language, influences lexical and non-lexical tone perception and word learning during childhood. Forty children aged 5;3-7;2, bilingual either in English and Mandarin or English and another atonal language, were tested on Mandarin lexical tone discrimination, level-pitch sine-wave tone discrimination, and learning of novel words differing minimally in Mandarin lexical tone. Mandarin-English bilingual children discriminated between and learned novel words differing minimally in Mandarin lexical tone more accurately than their atonal-English bilingual peers. However, Mandarin-English and atonal-English bilingual children discriminated between level-pitch sine-wave tones with similar accuracy. Moreover, atonal-English bilingual children showed a tendency to perceive differing Mandarin lexical and level-pitch sine-wave tones as identical, whereas their Mandarin-English peers showed no such tendency. These results indicate that bilingualism in a tonal language in addition to an atonal language-but not bilingualism in two atonal languages-allows for continued sensitivity to lexical tone beyond infancy. Moreover, they suggest that although tonal-atonal bilingualism does not enhance sensitivity to differences in pitch between sine-wave tones beyond infancy any more effectively than atonal-atonal bilingualism, it protects against the development of biases to perceive differing lexical and non-lexical tones as identical. Together, the results indicate that, beyond infancy, tonal-atonal bilinguals process lexical tones using different cognitive mechanisms than atonal-atonal bilinguals, but that both groups process level-pitch non-lexical tone using the same cognitive mechanisms.
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10
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Son G. Korean-speaking children's perceptual development in multidimensional acoustic space. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2020; 47:579-599. [PMID: 31722761 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000919000692] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
This study investigated how Korean toddlers' perception of stop categories develops in the acoustic dimensions of VOT and F0. To examine the developmental trajectory of VOT and F0 in toddlers' perceptual space, a perceptual identification test with natural and synthesized sound stimuli was conducted with 58 Korean monolingual children (aged 2-4 years). The results revealed that toddlers' perceptual mapping functions on VOT mainly in the high-pitch environment, resulting in more successful perceptual accuracy in fortis or aspirated stops than in lenis stops. F0 development is correlated with the perceptual distinction of lenis from aspirated stops, but no consistent categorical perception for F0 was found before four years of age. The findings suggest that multi-parametric control in perceptual development guides an acquisition ordering of Korean stop phonemes and that tonal development is significantly related to the acquisition of Korean phonemic contrasts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gayeon Son
- University of Pennsylvania, Department of Linguistics, Philadelphia, PA, USA, and Kwangwoon University, Department of English Language and Literature, Seoul, Korea
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11
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Antovich DM, Graf Estes K. One language or two? Navigating cross-language conflict in statistical word segmentation. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12960. [PMID: 32145042 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2019] [Revised: 01/22/2020] [Accepted: 02/21/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Bilingual infants must navigate the similarities and differences between their languages to achieve native proficiency in childhood. Bilinguals learning to find individual words in fluent speech face the possibility of conflicting cues to word boundaries across their languages. Despite this challenge, bilingual infants typically begin to segment and learn words in both languages around the same time as monolinguals. It is possible that early bilingual experience may support infants' abilities to track regularities relevant for word segmentation separately across their languages. In a dual speech stream statistical word segmentation task, we assessed whether 16-month-old infants could track syllable co-occurrence regularities in two artificial languages despite conflicting information across the languages. We found that bilingual, but not monolingual, infants were able to segment the dual speech streams using statistical regularities. Although the two language groups did not differ on secondary measures of cognitive and linguistic development, bilingual infants' real-world experience with bilingual speakers was predictive of their performance in the dual language statistical segmentation task.
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12
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Orena AJ, Polka L. Monolingual and bilingual infants’ word segmentation abilities in an inter‐mixed dual‐language task. INFANCY 2019; 24:718-737. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12296] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2018] [Revised: 04/03/2019] [Accepted: 04/09/2019] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Adriel John Orena
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders McGill University Montréal Quebec Canada
- Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music McGill University Montréal Quebec Canada
| | - Linda Polka
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders McGill University Montréal Quebec Canada
- Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music McGill University Montréal Quebec Canada
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13
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Hay JF, Cannistraci RA, Zhao Q. Mapping non-native pitch contours to meaning: Perceptual and experiential factors. JOURNAL OF MEMORY AND LANGUAGE 2019; 105:131-140. [PMID: 31244505 PMCID: PMC6594708 DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2018.12.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Infants show interesting patterns of flexibility and constraint early in word learning. Here, we explore perceptual and experiential factors that drive associative learning of labels that differ in pitch contour. Contrary to the salience hypothesis proposed in Experiment 1, English-learning 14-month-olds failed to map acoustically distinctive level and dipping labels to novel referents, even though they discriminated the labels when no potential referents were present. Conversely, infants readily mapped the less distinctive rising and dipping labels. In Experiment 2, we found that the degree of pitch variation in labels also does not account for learning. Instead, English-learning infants only learned if one of the labels had a rising pitch contour. We argue that experience with hearing and/or producing native language prosody may lead infants to initially over-interpret the role rising pitch plays in differentiating words. Together, our findings suggest that multiple factors contribute to whether specific acoustic forms will function as candidate object labels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica F. Hay
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Psychology, United States
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14
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Best CT. The Diversity of Tone Languages and the Roles of Pitch Variation in Non-tone Languages: Considerations for Tone Perception Research. Front Psychol 2019; 10:364. [PMID: 30863341 PMCID: PMC6399451 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00364] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2018] [Accepted: 02/05/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Catherine T Best
- MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
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15
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Ma W, Zhou P. Three-year-old tone language learners are tolerant of tone mispronunciations spoken with familiar and novel tones. COGENT PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/23311908.2019.1690816] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Weiyi Ma
- School of Human Environmental Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA
| | - Peng Zhou
- Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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16
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Kasisopa B, El-Khoury Antonios L, Jongman A, Sereno JA, Burnham D. Training Children to Perceive Non-native Lexical Tones: Tone Language Background, Bilingualism, and Auditory-Visual Information. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1508. [PMID: 30233446 PMCID: PMC6131621 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2017] [Accepted: 07/31/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates the role of language background and bilingual status in the perception of foreign lexical tones. Eight groups of participants, consisting of children of 6 and 8 years from one of four language background (tone or non-tone) × bilingual status (monolingual or bilingual)-Thai monolingual, English monolingual, English-Thai bilingual, and English-Arabic bilingual were trained to perceive the four Mandarin lexical tones. Half the children in each of these eight groups were given auditory-only (AO) training and half auditory-visual (AV) training. In each group Mandarin tone identification was tested before and after (pre- and post-) training with both auditory-only test (ao-test) and auditory-visual test (av test). The effect of training on Mandarin tone identification was minimal for 6-year-olds. On the other hand, 8-year-olds, particularly those with tone language experience showed greater pre- to post-training improvement, and this was best indexed by ao-test trials. Bilingual vs. monolingual background did not facilitate overall improvement due to training, but it did modulate the efficacy of the Training mode: for bilinguals both AO and AV training, and especially AO, resulted in performance gain; but for monolinguals training was most effective with AV stimuli. Again this effect was best indexed by ao-test trials. These results suggest that tone language experience, be it monolingual or bilingual, is a strong predictor of learning unfamiliar tones; that monolinguals learn best from AV training trials and bilinguals from AO training trials; and that there is no metalinguistic advantage due to bilingualism in learning to perceive lexical tones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjawan Kasisopa
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
| | - Lamya El-Khoury Antonios
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
| | - Allard Jongman
- Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.,Phonetics & Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States
| | - Joan A Sereno
- Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.,Phonetics & Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States
| | - Denis Burnham
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
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17
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Singh L, Fu CSL, Seet XH, Tong APY, Wang JL, Best CT. Developmental change in tone perception in Mandarin monolingual, English monolingual, and Mandarin-English bilingual infants: Divergences between monolingual and bilingual learners. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 173:59-77. [PMID: 29677553 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.03.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2017] [Revised: 03/20/2018] [Accepted: 03/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Most languages use lexical tone to discriminate the meanings of words. There has been recent interest in tracking the development of tone categories during infancy. These studies have focused largely on monolingual infants learning either a tone language or a non-tone language. It remains to be seen how bilingual infants learning one tone language (e.g., Mandarin) and one non-tone language (e.g., English) discriminate tones. Here, we examined infants' discrimination of two Mandarin tones pairs: one salient and one subtle. Discrimination was investigated in three groups: Mandarin-English bilinguals, English monolinguals, and Mandarin monolinguals at 6 months and 9 months of age in a cross-sectional design. Results demonstrated relatively strong Mandarin tone discrimination in Mandarin monolinguals, with salient tone discrimination at 6 months and both salient and subtle tone discrimination at 9 months. English monolinguals discriminated neither contrast at 6 months but discriminated the salient contrast at 9 months. Surprisingly, there was no evidence for tone discrimination in Mandarin-English bilingual infants. In a second experiment, 12- and 13-month-old Mandarin-English bilingual and English monolingual infants were tested to determine whether bilinguals would demonstrate tone sensitivity at a later age. Results revealed a lack of tone sensitivity at 12 or 13 months in bilingual infants, yet English monolingual infants were sensitive to both salient and subtle Mandarin tone contrasts at 12 or 13 months. Our findings provide evidence for age-related convergence in Mandarin tone discrimination in English and Mandarin monolingual infants and for a distinct pattern of tone discrimination in bilingual infants. Theoretical implications for phonetic category acquisition are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
| | - Charlene S L Fu
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Xian Hui Seet
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Ashley P Y Tong
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Joelle L Wang
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Catherine T Best
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
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18
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Liu L, Kager R. Monolingual and Bilingual Infants' Ability to Use Non-native Tone for Word Learning Deteriorates by the Second Year After Birth. Front Psychol 2018; 9:117. [PMID: 29599730 PMCID: PMC5862817 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2017] [Accepted: 01/24/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies reported a non-native word learning advantage for bilingual infants at around 18 months. We investigated developmental changes in infant interpretation of sounds that aid in object mapping. Dutch monolingual and bilingual (exposed to Dutch and a second non-tone-language) infants' word learning ability was examined on two novel label-object pairings using syllables differing in Mandarin tones as labels (flat vs. falling). Infants aged 14-15 months, regardless of language backgrounds, were sensitive to violations in the label-objects pairings when lexical tones were switched compared to when they were the same as habituated. Conversely at 17-18 months, neither monolingual nor bilingual infants demonstrated learning. Linking with existing literature, infants' ability to associate non-native tones with meanings may be related to tonal acoustic properties and/or perceptual assimilation to native prosodic categories. These findings provide new insights into the relation between infant tone perception, learning, and interpretative narrowing from a developmental perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liquan Liu
- School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics-OTS, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian Research Council, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - René Kager
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics-OTS, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
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19
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Singh L. He said, she said: effects of bilingualism on cross-talker word recognition in infancy. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2018; 45:498-510. [PMID: 28554334 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000917000186] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to examine effects of bilingual language input on infant word segmentation and on talker generalization. In the present study, monolingually and bilingually exposed infants were compared on their abilities to recognize familiarized words in speech and to maintain generalizable representations of familiarized words. Words were first presented in the context of sentences to infants and then presented to infants in isolation during a test phase. During test, words were produced by a talker of the same gender and by a talker of the opposite gender. Results demonstrated that both bilingual and monolingual infants were able to recognize familiarized words to a comparable degree. Moreover, both bilingual and monolingual infants recognized words in spite of talker variation. Results demonstrated robust word recognition and talker generalization in monolingual and bilingual infants at 8 months of age.
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20
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Antoniou M, Chin JLL. What Can Lexical Tone Training Studies in Adults Tell Us about Tone Processing in Children? Front Psychol 2018; 9:1. [PMID: 29410639 PMCID: PMC5787074 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2017] [Accepted: 01/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
A growing number of studies on the acquisition of lexical tone by adult learners have revealed that factors such as language background, musical experience, cognitive abilities, and neuroanatomy all play a role in determining tone learning success. On the basis of these findings, it has been argued that the effectiveness of tone learning in adulthood depends on individual differences in these factors. However, it is not clear whether similar individual differences play an analogous role in tone learning in childhood. Indeed, relatively few studies have made comparisons between how adults and children learn lexical tones. Here, we review recent developments for tone learning in both adults and children. The review covers tone training in a range of contexts, including in naive listeners, in native speakers of other tone languages, in listeners with varying levels of musical experience, and in individuals with speech and hearing disorders. Finally, we discuss the parallels between adult and child tone learning, and provide recommendations concerning how findings in adult tone training can provide insights into tone learning for children by accommodating the needs of individual learners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Antoniou
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Jessica L L Chin
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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21
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Ota M, Yamane N, Mazuka R. The Effects of Lexical Pitch Accent on Infant Word Recognition in Japanese. Front Psychol 2018; 8:2354. [PMID: 29375452 PMCID: PMC5770359 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02354] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2017] [Accepted: 12/26/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Learners of lexical tone languages (e.g., Mandarin) develop sensitivity to tonal contrasts and recognize pitch-matched, but not pitch-mismatched, familiar words by 11 months. Learners of non-tone languages (e.g., English) also show a tendency to treat pitch patterns as lexically contrastive up to about 18 months. In this study, we examined if this early-developing capacity to lexically encode pitch variations enables infants to acquire a pitch accent system, in which pitch-based lexical contrasts are obscured by the interaction of lexical and non-lexical (i.e., intonational) features. Eighteen 17-month-olds learning Tokyo Japanese were tested on their recognition of familiar words with the expected pitch or the lexically opposite pitch pattern. In early trials, infants were faster in shifting their eyegaze from the distractor object to the target object than in shifting from the target to distractor in the pitch-matched condition. In later trials, however, infants showed faster distractor-to-target than target-to-distractor shifts in both the pitch-matched and pitch-mismatched conditions. We interpret these results to mean that, in a pitch-accent system, the ability to use pitch variations to recognize words is still in a nascent state at 17 months.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mitsuhiko Ota
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Naoto Yamane
- Laboratory for Language Development, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Japan
| | - Reiko Mazuka
- Laboratory for Language Development, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Japan
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
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22
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Shi R, Gao J, Achim A, Li A. Perception and Representation of Lexical Tones in Native Mandarin-Learning Infants and Toddlers. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1117. [PMID: 28785228 PMCID: PMC5519614 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2016] [Accepted: 06/16/2017] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
We investigated the perceptual development of lexical tones in native tone-learning infants during the first 2 years of life, focusing on two important stages of phonological acquisition: the preverbal and vocabulary explosion stages. Experiment 1 examined monolingual Mandarin-Chinese-learning 4- to 13-month-olds' discrimination of similar lexical tones in Mandarin, Tone 2 (T2, rising) vs. Tone 3 (T3, low-dipping). Infants were habituated to exemplars of one tone (either T2 or T3), and tested with new exemplars of the habituated tone vs. the contrasting tone. Results show that looking time increased for the contrasting tone, but not for new exemplars of the habituated tone, suggesting that infants discriminated the two tones as separate categories. Furthermore, infants' discrimination of the tones was comparable across ages. Experiment 2 tested whether tones are distinguished in toddlers' lexicon. Monolingual Mandarin-learning 19- to 26-month-olds were presented with pairs of objects while one was named. Targets were familiar words bearing T2 or T3, either correctly pronounced (CP) or mispronounced (MP) in tone. We found that word recognition was equally successful in CP and in MP trials when T2 was mispronounced as T3 and T3 as T2, indicating that T2 and T3 are confusable. In contrast, recognition failed when T2 and T3 words were mispronounced as Tone 4 (T4, falling), showing that T4 was represented as a distinct category. Results show that toddlers have difficulty encoding similar tones distinctly in known words. The T2-T3 contrast is particularly challenging because of Tone 3 Sandhi, which changes T3 to T2 when it precedes another T3. At the stage when toddlers track the meaning of T2 and T3 words and track the sandhi alternations, they seem to overgeneralize the two tones as variants of one functional category, reflecting perceptual organization at the level of phonemic learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rushen Shi
- Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à MontréalMontréal, QC, Canada
| | - Jun Gao
- Phonetics and Speech Science Lab, Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social SciencesBeijing, China
| | - André Achim
- Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à MontréalMontréal, QC, Canada
| | - Aijun Li
- Phonetics and Speech Science Lab, Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social SciencesBeijing, China
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23
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Singh L, Tan A, Wewalaarachchi TD. Lexical tone variation and spoken word recognition in preschool children: effects of perceptual salience. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2017; 44:924-942. [PMID: 27377868 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000916000325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Children undergo gradual progression in their ability to differentiate correct and incorrect pronunciations of words, a process that is crucial to establishing a native vocabulary. For the most part, the development of mature phonological representations has been researched by investigating children's sensitivity to consonant and vowel variation, with a much lesser focus on lexical tones. The current study investigates sensitivity to lexical tones in word recognition with specific attention to role of perceptual salience. Chinese-speaking preschoolers were presented with familiar words that were correctly pronounced, substituted for a subtle tone variant (Tones 2 and 3), or substituted for a salient tone variant (Tones 1 and 4). Results demonstrated that subtle tone variants were mistakenly perceived as correct pronunciations and only salient tone variants were recognized as mispronunciations. Findings suggest that tone integration follows a more complex developmental course that previously concluded.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology,National University of Singapore
| | - Aloysia Tan
- Department of Psychology,National University of Singapore
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24
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Quam C, Creel SC. Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2017; 60:293-305. [PMID: 28124064 PMCID: PMC5533551 DOI: 10.1044/2016_jslhr-s-15-0248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2015] [Revised: 01/14/2016] [Accepted: 03/07/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin-English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin. METHOD We tested 72 Mandarin-English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions. RESULTS Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use. CONCLUSIONS This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language-even when the latter was learned natively.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolyn Quam
- Center for Research in Language, University of California, San Diego
| | - Sarah C. Creel
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego
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25
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Ma W, Zhou P, Singh L, Gao L. Spoken word recognition in young tone language learners: Age-dependent effects of segmental and suprasegmental variation. Cognition 2016; 159:139-155. [PMID: 27951429 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.11.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2015] [Revised: 11/16/2016] [Accepted: 11/28/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
The majority of the world's languages rely on both segmental (vowels, consonants) and suprasegmental (lexical tones) information to contrast the meanings of individual words. However, research on early language development has mostly focused on the acquisition of vowel-consonant languages. Developmental research comparing sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental features in young tone learners is extremely rare. This study examined 2- and 3-year-old monolingual tone learners' sensitivity to vowels and tones. Experiment 1a tested the influence of vowel and tone variation on novel word learning. Vowel and tone variation hindered word recognition efficiency in both age groups. However, tone variation hindered word recognition accuracy only in 2-year-olds, while 3-year-olds were insensitive to tone variation. Experiment 1b demonstrated that 3-year-olds could use tones to learn new words when additional support was provided, and additionally, that Tone 3 words were exceptionally difficult to learn. Experiment 2 confirmed a similar pattern of results when children were presented with familiar words. This study is the first to show that despite the importance of tones in tone languages, vowels maintain primacy over tones in young children's word recognition and that tone sensitivity in word learning and recognition changes between 2 and 3years of age. The findings suggest that early lexical processes are more tightly constrained by variation in vowels than by tones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weiyi Ma
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney 2109, Australia; School of Linguistics and Literature, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610000, China.
| | - Peng Zhou
- Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 117570, Singapore
| | - Liqun Gao
- Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain, Beijing Language and Culture University, 100066 Beijing, China
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26
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Singh L, Poh FLS, Fu CSL. Limits on Monolingualism? A Comparison of Monolingual and Bilingual Infants' Abilities to Integrate Lexical Tone in Novel Word Learning. Front Psychol 2016; 7:667. [PMID: 27242584 PMCID: PMC4861728 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00667] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2016] [Accepted: 04/21/2016] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
To construct their first lexicon, infants must determine the relationship between native phonological variation and the meanings of words. This process is arguably more complex for bilingual learners who are often confronted with phonological conflict: phonological variation that is lexically relevant in one language may be lexically irrelevant in the other. In a series of four experiments, the present study investigated English-Mandarin bilingual infants' abilities to negotiate phonological conflict introduced by learning both a tone and a non-tone language. In a novel word learning task, bilingual children were tested on their sensitivity to tone variation in English and Mandarin contexts. Their abilities to interpret tone variation in a language-dependent manner were compared to those of monolingual Mandarin learning infants. Results demonstrated that at 12-13 months, bilingual infants demonstrated the ability to bind tone to word meanings in Mandarin, but to disregard tone variation when learning new words in English. In contrast, monolingual learners of Mandarin did not show evidence of integrating tones into word meanings in Mandarin at the same age even though they were learning a tone language. However, a tone discrimination paradigm confirmed that monolingual Mandarin learning infants were able to tell these tones apart at 12-13 months under a different set of conditions. Later, at 17-18 months, monolingual Mandarin learners were able to bind tone variation to word meanings when learning new words. Our findings are discussed in terms of cognitive adaptations associated with bilingualism that may ease the negotiation of phonological conflict and facilitate precocious uptake of certain properties of each language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, SingaporeSingapore
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27
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Singh L, Quam C. Can bilingual children turn one language off? Evidence from perceptual switching. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 147:111-25. [PMID: 27077335 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2015] [Revised: 03/11/2016] [Accepted: 03/11/2016] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Bilinguals have the sole option of conversing in one language in spite of knowing two languages. The question of how bilinguals alternate between their two languages, activating and deactivating one language, is not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the development of this process by researching bilingual children's abilities to selectively integrate lexical tone based on its relevance in the language being used. In particular, the current study sought to determine the effects of global conversation-level cues versus local (within-word phonotactic) cues on children's tone integration in newly learned words. Words were taught to children via a conversational narrative, and word recognition was investigated using the intermodal preferential-looking paradigm. Children were tested on recognition of words with stimuli that were either matched or mismatched in tone in both English and Mandarin conversations. Results demonstrated that 3- to 4-year-olds did not adapt their interpretation of lexical tone changes to the language being spoken. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds were able to do so when supported by informative within-word cues. Results suggest that preschool children are capable of selectively activating a single language given word-internal cues to language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
| | - Carolyn Quam
- Departments of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
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28
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Singh L, Fu CSL. A New View of Language Development: The Acquisition of Lexical Tone. Child Dev 2016; 87:834-54. [PMID: 27007329 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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29
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Asaridou SS, Hagoort P, McQueen JM. Effects of Early Bilingual Experience with a Tone and a Non-Tone Language on Speech-Music Integration. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0144225. [PMID: 26659377 PMCID: PMC4684237 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0144225] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2015] [Accepted: 11/16/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
We investigated music and language processing in a group of early bilinguals who spoke a tone language and a non-tone language (Cantonese and Dutch). We assessed online speech-music processing interactions, that is, interactions that occur when speech and music are processed simultaneously in songs, with a speeded classification task. In this task, participants judged sung pseudowords either musically (based on the direction of the musical interval) or phonologically (based on the identity of the sung vowel). We also assessed longer-term effects of linguistic experience on musical ability, that is, the influence of extensive prior experience with language when processing music. These effects were assessed with a task in which participants had to learn to identify musical intervals and with four pitch-perception tasks. Our hypothesis was that due to their experience in two different languages using lexical versus intonational tone, the early Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals would outperform the Dutch control participants. In online processing, the Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals processed speech and music more holistically than controls. This effect seems to be driven by experience with a tone language, in which integration of segmental and pitch information is fundamental. Regarding longer-term effects of linguistic experience, we found no evidence for a bilingual advantage in either the music-interval learning task or the pitch-perception tasks. Together, these results suggest that being a Cantonese-Dutch bilingual does not have any measurable longer-term effects on pitch and music processing, but does have consequences for how speech and music are processed jointly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Salomi S. Asaridou
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- * E-mail:
| | - Peter Hagoort
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - James M. McQueen
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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30
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Bergmann C, Cristia A. Development of infants' segmentation of words from native speech: a meta-analytic approach. Dev Sci 2015; 19:901-917. [PMID: 26353859 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2014] [Accepted: 06/01/2015] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Infants start learning words, the building blocks of language, at least by 6 months. To do so, they must be able to extract the phonological form of words from running speech. A rich literature has investigated this process, termed word segmentation. We addressed the fundamental question of how infants of different ages segment words from their native language using a meta-analytic approach. Based on previous popular theoretical and experimental work, we expected infants to display familiarity preferences early on, with a switch to novelty preferences as infants become more proficient at processing and segmenting native speech. We also considered the possibility that this switch may occur at different points in time as a function of infants' native language and took into account the impact of various task- and stimulus-related factors that might affect difficulty. The combined results from 168 experiments reporting on data gathered from 3774 infants revealed a persistent familiarity preference across all ages. There was no significant effect of additional factors, including native language and experiment design. Further analyses revealed no sign of selective data collection or reporting. We conclude that models of infant information processing that are frequently cited in this domain may not, in fact, apply in the case of segmenting words from native speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina Bergmann
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France.
| | - Alejandrina Cristia
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France
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31
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Singh L, Goh HH, Wewalaarachchi TD. Spoken word recognition in early childhood: Comparative effects of vowel, consonant and lexical tone variation. Cognition 2015; 142:1-11. [PMID: 26010558 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2014] [Revised: 05/12/2015] [Accepted: 05/13/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The majority of the world's languages exploit consonants, vowels and lexical tones to contrast the meanings of individual words. However, the majority of experimental research on early language development focuses on consonant-vowel languages. In the present study, the role of consonants, vowels and lexical tones in emergent word knowledge are directly compared in toddlers (2.5-3.5 years) and preschoolers (4-5 years) who were bilingual native learners of a consonant-vowel-tone language (Mandarin Chinese). Using a preferential looking paradigm, participants were presented with correct pronunciations and consonantal, vowel, and tonal variations of known words. Responses to each type of variation were assessed via gaze fixations to a visual target. When their labels were correctly pronounced, visual targets were reliably identified at both age groups. However, in toddlers, there was a high degree of sensitivity to mispronunciations due to variation in lexical tones relative to those due to consonants and vowels. This pattern was reversed in preschoolers, who were more sensitive to consonant and vowel variation than to tone variation. Findings are discussed in terms of properties of tones, vowels and consonants and the respective role of each source of variation in tone languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Dept. of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore
| | - Hwee Hwee Goh
- Dept. of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore
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32
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Creel SC. Ups and Downs in Auditory Development: Preschoolers' Sensitivity to Pitch Contour and Timbre. Cogn Sci 2015; 40:373-403. [PMID: 25846115 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2014] [Revised: 09/24/2014] [Accepted: 12/23/2014] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Much research has explored developing sound representations in language, but less work addresses developing representations of other sound patterns. This study examined preschool children's musical representations using two different tasks: discrimination and sound-picture association. Melodic contour--a musically relevant property--and instrumental timbre, which is (arguably) less musically relevant, were tested. In Experiment 1, children failed to associate cartoon characters to melodies with maximally different pitch contours, with no advantage for melody preexposure. Experiment 2 also used different-contour melodies and found good discrimination, whereas association was at chance. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2, but with a large timbre change instead of a contour change. Here, discrimination and association were both excellent. Preschool-aged children may have stronger or more durable representations of timbre than contour, particularly in more difficult tasks. Reasons for weaker association of contour than timbre information are discussed, along with implications for auditory development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah C Creel
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego
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33
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Bilingual exposure influences infant VOT perception. Infant Behav Dev 2015; 38:27-36. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.12.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2014] [Revised: 08/26/2014] [Accepted: 12/11/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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34
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Singh L, Hui TJ, Chan C, Golinkoff RM. Influences of vowel and tone variation on emergent word knowledge: a cross-linguistic investigation. Dev Sci 2013; 17:94-109. [PMID: 24118787 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2013] [Accepted: 05/22/2013] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology; National University of Singapore; Singapore
| | - Tam Jun Hui
- Department of Psychology; National University of Singapore; Singapore
| | - Calista Chan
- Department of Psychology; National University of Singapore; Singapore
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35
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Singh L. One world, two languages: cross-language semantic priming in bilingual toddlers. Child Dev 2013; 85:755-66. [PMID: 23802779 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The interconnectedness of bilingual memory remains a topic of great debate. Semantic priming provides a powerful methodological tool with which to investigate this issue in early bilingual toddlers. Semantic priming effects were investigated in 21 bilingual toddlers (2.5 years) within and across each of their languages. Results revealed the first evidence of cross-language and within-language semantic priming in bilingual toddlers. However, priming effects were only observed when the prime was presented in the dominant language and were comparable in magnitude within and across languages. Findings point to high interconnectivity across languages; however, there appear to be strong influences of language dominance on semantic facilitation. Findings serve to inform and refine developmental models of bilingual memory.
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