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Ming L, Geng L, Zhao X, Wang Y, Hu N, Yang Y, Hu X. The mechanism of phonetic information in voice identity discrimination: a comparative study based on sighted and blind people. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1352692. [PMID: 38845764 PMCID: PMC11153856 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1352692] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2023] [Accepted: 05/10/2024] [Indexed: 06/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine whether phonetic information functions and how phonetic information affects voice identity processing in blind people. Method To address the first inquiry, 25 normal sighted participants and 30 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech and backward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language. To address the second inquiry, combining articulatory suppression paradigm, 26 normal sighted participants and 26 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language. Results In Experiment 1, not only in the voice identity discrimination task with forward speech, but also in the discrimination task with backward speech, both the sighted and blind groups showed the superiority of the native language. This finding supports the view that backward speech still retains some phonetic information, and indicates that phonetic information can affect voice identity processing in sighted and blind people. In addition, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by the speech manner, which is related to articulatory rehearsal. In Experiment 2, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by articulatory suppression. This indicates that phonetic information may act in different ways on voice identity processing in sighted and blind people. Conclusion The heightened dependence on voice source information in blind people appears not to undermine the function of phonetic information, but it appears to change the functional mechanism of phonetic information. These findings suggest that the present phonetic familiarity model needs to be improved with respect to the mechanism of phonetic information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Ming
- School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Xuzhou, China
| | - Libo Geng
- School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Xuzhou, China
| | - Xinyu Zhao
- School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Xuzhou, China
| | - Yichan Wang
- School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Xuzhou, China
| | - Na Hu
- School of Preschool and Special Education, Kunming University, Yunnan, China
| | - Yiming Yang
- School of Linguistic Sciences and Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- Key Laboratory of Language and Cognitive Neuroscience of Jiangsu Province, Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Xuzhou, China
| | - Xueping Hu
- College of Education, Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei, China
- Anhui Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Computing and Application on Cognitive Behavior (ICACB), Huaibei, China
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Marcet L, Birulés J, Bosch L, Pons F. Who spoke that language? Assessing early face-language associations in monolingual and bilingual infants. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1393836. [PMID: 38813567 PMCID: PMC11133666 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1393836] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/29/2024] [Accepted: 04/26/2024] [Indexed: 05/31/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction In bilingual communities, knowing the language each speaker uses may support language separation and, later, guide language use in a context-appropriate manner. Previous research has shown that infants begin to form primary associations between the face and the language used by a speaker around the age of 3 months. However, there is still a limited understanding of how robust these associations are and whether they are influenced by the linguistic background of the infant. To answer these questions, this study explores monolingual and bilingual infants' ability to form face-language associations throughout the first year of life. Methods A group of 4-, 6-, and 10-month-old Spanish and/or Catalan monolingual and bilingual infants were tested in an eye-tracking preferential-looking paradigm (N = 156). After the infants were familiarized with videos of a Catalan and a Spanish speaker, they were tested in two types of test trials with different task demands. First, a Silent test trial assessed primary face-language associations by measuring infants' visual preference for the speakers based on the language they had previously used. Then, two Language test trials assessed more robust face-language associations by measuring infants' ability to match the face of each speaker with their corresponding language. Results When measuring primary face-language associations, both monolingual and bilingual infants exhibited language-based preferences according to their specific exposure to the languages. Interestingly, this preference varied with age, with a transition from an initial familiarity preference to a novelty preference in older infants. Four-month-old infants showed a preference for the speaker who used their native/dominant language, while 10-month-old infants preferred the speaker who used their non-native/non-dominant language. When measuring more robust face-language associations, infants did not demonstrate signs of consistently matching the faces of the speakers with the language they had previously used, regardless of age or linguistic background. Discussion Overall, the results indicate that while both monolingual and bilingual infants before the first year of life can form primary face-language associations, these associations remain fragile as infants seemed unable to maintain them when tested in a more demanding task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laia Marcet
- Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Joan Birulés
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France
| | - Laura Bosch
- Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ferran Pons
- Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
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3
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Harford EE, Holt LL, Abel TJ. Unveiling the development of human voice perception: Neurobiological mechanisms and pathophysiology. CURRENT RESEARCH IN NEUROBIOLOGY 2024; 6:100127. [PMID: 38511174 PMCID: PMC10950757 DOI: 10.1016/j.crneur.2024.100127] [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: 10/06/2023] [Revised: 02/22/2024] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024] Open
Abstract
The human voice is a critical stimulus for the auditory system that promotes social connection, informs the listener about identity and emotion, and acts as the carrier for spoken language. Research on voice processing in adults has informed our understanding of the unique status of the human voice in the mature auditory cortex and provided potential explanations for mechanisms that underly voice selectivity and identity processing. There is evidence that voice perception undergoes developmental change starting in infancy and extending through early adolescence. While even young infants recognize the voice of their mother, there is an apparent protracted course of development to reach adult-like selectivity for human voice over other sound categories and recognition of other talkers by voice. Gaps in the literature do not allow for an exact mapping of this trajectory or an adequate description of how voice processing and its neural underpinnings abilities evolve. This review provides a comprehensive account of developmental voice processing research published to date and discusses how this evidence fits with and contributes to current theoretical models proposed in the adult literature. We discuss how factors such as cognitive development, neural plasticity, perceptual narrowing, and language acquisition may contribute to the development of voice processing and its investigation in children. We also review evidence of voice processing abilities in premature birth, autism spectrum disorder, and phonagnosia to examine where and how deviations from the typical trajectory of development may manifest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily E. Harford
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
| | - Lori L. Holt
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
| | - Taylor J. Abel
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, USA
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4
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Yu ME, Fecher N, Johnson EK. Learning to identify talkers: Do 4.5-month-old infants distinguish between unfamiliar males? JASA EXPRESS LETTERS 2024; 4:015203. [PMID: 38189673 DOI: 10.1121/10.0024271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024]
Abstract
Vocal recognition of socially relevant conspecifics is an important skill throughout the animal kingdom. Human infants recognize their own mother at birth, and they distinguish between unfamiliar female talkers by 4.5 months of age. Can 4.5-month-olds also distinguish between unfamiliar male talkers? To date, no adequately powered study has addressed this question. Here, a visual fixation procedure demonstrates that, unlike adults, 4.5-month-olds (N = 48) are worse at telling apart unfamiliar male voices than they are at telling apart unfamiliar female voices. This result holds despite infants' equal attentiveness to unfamiliar male and female voices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Madeleine E Yu
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, , ,
| | - Natalie Fecher
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, , ,
| | - Elizabeth K Johnson
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, , ,
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Zaltz Y. The effect of stimulus type and testing method on talker discrimination of school-age children. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2023; 153:2611. [PMID: 37129674 DOI: 10.1121/10.0017999] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
Efficient talker discrimination (TD) improves speech understanding under multi-talker conditions. So far, TD of children has been assessed using various testing parameters, making it difficult to draw comparative conclusions. This study explored the effects of the stimulus type and variability on children's TD. Thirty-two children (7-10 years old) underwent eight TD assessments with fundamental frequency + formant changes using an adaptive procedure. Stimuli included consonant-vowel-consonant words or three-word sentences and were either fixed by run or by trial (changing throughout the run). Cognitive skills were also assessed. Thirty-one adults (18-35 years old) served as controls. The results showed (1) poorer TD for the fixed-by-trial than the fixed-by-run method, with both stimulus types for the adults but only with the words for the children; (2) poorer TD for the words than the sentences with the fixed-by-trial method only for the children; and (3) significant correlations between the children's age and TD. These results support a developmental trajectory in the use of perceptual anchoring for TD and in its reliance on comprehensive acoustic and linguistic information. The finding that the testing parameters may influence the top-down and bottom-up processing for TD should be considered when comparing data across studies or when planning new TD experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yael Zaltz
- Department of Communication Disorders, The Steyer School of Health Professions, Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
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6
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Should I learn from you? Seeing expectancy violations about action efficiency hinders social learning in infancy. Cognition 2023; 230:105293. [PMID: 36191356 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105293] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Revised: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 09/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Infants generate basic expectations about their physical and social environment. This early knowledge allows them to identify opportunities for learning, preferring to explore and learn about objects that violate their prior expectations. However, less is known about how expectancy violations about people's actions influence infants' subsequent learning from others and about others. Here, we presented 18-month-old infants with an agent who acted either efficiently (expected action) or inefficiently (unexpected action) and then labeled an object. We hypothesized that infants would prefer to learn from the agent (label-object association) if she previously acted efficiently, but they would prefer to learn about the agent (voice-speaker association) if she previously acted inefficiently. As expected, infants who previously saw the agent acting efficiently showed greater attention to the demonstrated object and learned the new label-object association, but infants presented with the inefficient agent did not. However, there was no evidence that infants learned the voice-speaker association in any of the conditions. In summary, expectancy violations about people's actions may signal a situation to avoid learning from them. We discussed the results in relation to studies on surprise-induced learning, motionese, and selective social learning, and we proposed other experimental paradigms to investigate how expectancy violations influence infants' learning about others.
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Colby S, Orena AJ. Recognizing Voices Through a Cochlear Implant: A Systematic Review of Voice Perception, Talker Discrimination, and Talker Identification. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:3165-3194. [PMID: 35926089 PMCID: PMC9911123 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2021] [Revised: 02/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/03/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Some cochlear implant (CI) users report having difficulty accessing indexical information in the speech signal, presumably due to limitations in the transmission of fine spectrotemporal cues. The purpose of this review article was to systematically review and evaluate the existing research on talker processing in CI users. Specifically, we reviewed the performance of CI users in three types of talker- and voice-related tasks. We also examined the different factors (such as participant, hearing, and device characteristics) that might influence performance in these specific tasks. DESIGN We completed a systematic search of the literature with select key words using citation aggregation software to search Google Scholar. We included primary reports that tested (a) talker discrimination, (b) voice perception, and (c) talker identification. Each report must have had at least one group of participants with CIs. Each included study was also evaluated for quality of evidence. RESULTS The searches resulted in 1,561 references, which were first screened for inclusion and then evaluated in full. Forty-three studies examining talker discrimination, voice perception, and talker identification were included in the final review. Most studies were focused on postlingually deafened and implanted adult CI users, with fewer studies focused on prelingual implant users. In general, CI users performed above chance in these tasks. When there was a difference between groups, CI users performed less accurately than their normal-hearing (NH) peers. A subset of CI users reached the same level of performance as NH participants exposed to noise-vocoded stimuli. Some studies found that CI users and NH participants relied on different cues for talker perception. Within groups of CI users, there is moderate evidence for a bimodal benefit for talker processing, and there are mixed findings about the effects of hearing experience. CONCLUSIONS The current review highlights the challenges faced by CI users in tracking and recognizing voices and how they adapt to it. Although large variability exists, there is evidence that CI users can process indexical information from speech, though with less accuracy than their NH peers. Recent work has described some of the factors that might ease the challenges of talker processing in CI users. We conclude by suggesting some future avenues of research to optimize real-world speech outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Colby
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City
| | - Adriel John Orena
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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Orena AJ, Mader AS, Werker JF. Learning to Recognize Unfamiliar Voices: An Online Study With 12- and 24-Month-Olds. Front Psychol 2022; 13:874411. [PMID: 35558718 PMCID: PMC9088808 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.874411] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2022] [Accepted: 03/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Young infants are attuned to the indexical properties of speech: they can recognize highly familiar voices and distinguish them from unfamiliar voices. Less is known about how and when infants start to recognize unfamiliar voices, and to map them to faces. This skill is particularly challenging when portions of the speaker’s face are occluded, as is the case with masking. Here, we examined voice−face recognition abilities in infants 12 and 24 months of age. Using the online Lookit platform, children saw and heard four different speakers produce words with sonorous phonemes (high talker information), and words with phonemes that are less sonorous (low talker information). Infants aged 24 months, but not 12 months, were able to learn to link the voices to partially occluded faces of unfamiliar speakers, and only when the words were produced with high talker information. These results reveal that 24-month-old infants can encode and retrieve indexical properties of an unfamiliar speaker’s voice, and they can access this information even when visual access to the speaker’s mouth is blocked.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adriel John Orena
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.,Department of Evaluation and Research Services, Fraser Health Authority, Surrey, BC, Canada
| | - Asia Sotera Mader
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Janet F Werker
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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9
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Fecher N, Johnson EK. Revisiting the talker recognition advantage in bilingual infants. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 214:105276. [PMID: 34507181 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105276] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2020] [Revised: 08/03/2021] [Accepted: 08/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Recent work has shown that exposure to multiple languages affects nonlinguistic processing of speech during infancy. Specifically, Fecher and Johnson found that bilingual 9-month-olds outperformed their monolingual peers in a face-voice matching task in an unfamiliar language [Developmental Science (2019a), 22(4), e12778]. What factors were driving this effect? That is, was this finding truly reflective of a bilingual advantage specific to talker processing, or did the study demonstrate a general cognitive advantage in bilingual infants? Here, we revisited this question by testing bilingual and monolingual 9-month-olds (N = 48) on their ability to associate previously unknown voices with animated cartoon characters. In comparison with earlier work, where infants were presented with characters speaking an unfamiliar language (Spanish), the characters in this study spoke a language familiar to both groups of infants (English). Critically, we found that the monolingual and bilingual infants learned the face-voice pairings equally well when they were tested on the familiar language. We conclude that whereas bilingual infants are skilled at recognizing talkers regardless of the language spoken by the talkers, monolingual infants succeed at talker recognition in a familiar language only. These results begin to clarify the underlying nature of the talker recognition benefit previously reported for bilingual infants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalie Fecher
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
| | - Elizabeth K Johnson
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada.
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10
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Abstract
The ability to identify individuals by voice is fundamental for communication. However, little is known about the expectations that infants hold when learning unfamiliar voices. Here, the voice-learning skills of 4- and 8-month-olds (N = 53; 29 girls, 14 boys of various ethnicities) were tested using a preferential-looking task that involved audiovisual stimuli of their mothers and other unfamiliar women. Findings reveal that the expectation that novel voices map on to novel faces emerges between 4 and 8 months of age, and that infants can retain learning of face-voice pairings via nonostensive cues by 8 months of age. This study provides new insights about infants' use of disambiguation and fast mapping in early voice learning.
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11
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Nagels L, Gaudrain E, Vickers D, Hendriks P, Başkent D. School-age children benefit from voice gender cue differences for the perception of speech in competing speech. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 149:3328. [PMID: 34241121 DOI: 10.1121/10.0004791] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2020] [Accepted: 04/08/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Differences in speakers' voice characteristics, such as mean fundamental frequency (F0) and vocal-tract length (VTL), that primarily define speakers' so-called perceived voice gender facilitate the perception of speech in competing speech. Perceiving speech in competing speech is particularly challenging for children, which may relate to their lower sensitivity to differences in voice characteristics than adults. This study investigated the development of the benefit from F0 and VTL differences in school-age children (4-12 years) for separating two competing speakers while tasked with comprehending one of them and also the relationship between this benefit and their corresponding voice discrimination thresholds. Children benefited from differences in F0, VTL, or both cues at all ages tested. This benefit proportionally remained the same across age, although overall accuracy continued to differ from that of adults. Additionally, children's benefit from F0 and VTL differences and their overall accuracy were not related to their discrimination thresholds. Hence, although children's voice discrimination thresholds and speech in competing speech perception abilities develop throughout the school-age years, children already show a benefit from voice gender cue differences early on. Factors other than children's discrimination thresholds seem to relate more closely to their developing speech in competing speech perception abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leanne Nagels
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen 9712EK, Netherlands
| | - Etienne Gaudrain
- CNRS UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics, Inserm UMRS 1028, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
| | - Deborah Vickers
- Sound Lab, Cambridge Hearing Group, Clinical Neurosciences Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, United Kingdom
| | - Petra Hendriks
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen 9712EK, Netherlands
| | - Deniz Başkent
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen 9713GZ, Netherlands
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12
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Developmental improvements in talker recognition are specific to the native language. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 202:104991. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104991] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2020] [Revised: 08/24/2020] [Accepted: 08/24/2020] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Nagels L, Gaudrain E, Vickers D, Hendriks P, Başkent D. Development of voice perception is dissociated across gender cues in school-age children. Sci Rep 2020; 10:5074. [PMID: 32193411 PMCID: PMC7081243 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-61732-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2019] [Accepted: 02/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Children's ability to distinguish speakers' voices continues to develop throughout childhood, yet it remains unclear how children's sensitivity to voice cues, such as differences in speakers' gender, develops over time. This so-called voice gender is primarily characterized by speakers' mean fundamental frequency (F0), related to glottal pulse rate, and vocal-tract length (VTL), related to speakers' size. Here we show that children's acquisition of adult-like performance for discrimination, a lower-order perceptual task, and categorization, a higher-order cognitive task, differs across voice gender cues. Children's discrimination was adult-like around the age of 8 for VTL but still differed from adults at the age of 12 for F0. Children's perceptual weight attributed to F0 for gender categorization was adult-like around the age of 6 but around the age of 10 for VTL. Children's discrimination and weighting of F0 and VTL were only correlated for 4- to 6-year-olds. Hence, children's development of discrimination and weighting of voice gender cues are dissociated, i.e., adult-like performance for F0 and VTL is acquired at different rates and does not seem to be closely related. The different developmental patterns for auditory discrimination and categorization highlight the complexity of the relationship between perceptual and cognitive mechanisms of voice perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leanne Nagels
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
- Research School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
| | - Etienne Gaudrain
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- CNRS UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
| | - Deborah Vickers
- Cambridge Hearing Group, Clinical Neurosciences Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Petra Hendriks
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Deniz Başkent
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
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Höhle B, Fritzsche T, Meß K, Philipp M, Gafos A. Only the right noise? Effects of phonetic and visual input variability on 14-month-olds' minimal pair word learning. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12950. [PMID: 32052548 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12950] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2019] [Revised: 12/22/2019] [Accepted: 01/27/2020] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Seminal work by Werker and colleagues (Stager & Werker [1997] Nature, 388, 381-382) has found that 14-month-old infants do not show evidence for learning minimal pairs in the habituation-switch paradigm. However, when multiple speakers produce the minimal pair in acoustically variable ways, infants' performance improves in comparison to a single speaker condition (Rost & McMurray [2009] Developmental Science, 12, 339-349). The current study further extends these results and assesses how different kinds of input variability affect 14-month-olds' minimal pair learning in the habituation-switch paradigm testing German learning infants. The first two experiments investigated word learning when the labels were spoken by a single speaker versus when the labels were spoken by multiple speakers. In the third experiment we studied whether non-acoustic variability, implemented by visual variability of the objects presented together with the labels, would also affect minimal pair learning. We found enhanced learning in the multiple speakers compared to the single speaker condition, confirming previous findings with English-learning infants. In contrast, visual variability of the presented objects did not support learning. These findings both confirm and better delimit the beneficial role of speech-specific variability in minimal pair learning. Finally, we review different proposals on the mechanisms via which variability confers benefits to learning and outline what may be likely principles that underlie this benefit. We highlight among these the multiplicity of acoustic cues signalling phonemic contrasts and the presence of relations among these cues. It is in these relations where we trace part of the source for the apparent paradoxical benefit of variability in learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Höhle
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Tom Fritzsche
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Katharina Meß
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Mareike Philipp
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Adamantios Gafos
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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15
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Fecher N, Johnson EK. By 4.5 Months, Linguistic Experience Already Affects Infants’ Talker Processing Abilities. Child Dev 2019; 90:1535-1543. [DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13280] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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