TY - JOUR
T1 - Representations for phonotactic learning in infancy
AU - Chambers, Kyle
AU - Onishi, Kristine
AU - Fisher, Cynthia
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by funds from the NIH (HD 44458), from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC), and training grants from the NIH (T32-MH19990 and T32-DC00035). We thank Renée Baillargeon, Gary Dell, Lisa Octigan, Megan Monday, and Adam Smith for helpful discussions. We also thank colleagues in the Language Acquisition Lab at the University of Illinois, particularly Amélie Bernard and Ye Xu, and colleagues in the Rochester Infant Lab at the University of Rochester, particularly Julie Markant.
PY - 2011/10
Y1 - 2011/10
N2 - Infants rapidly learn novel phonotactic constraints from brief listening experience. Four experiments explored the nature of the representations underlying this learning. 16.5- and 10.5-month-old infants heard training syllables in which particular consonants were restricted to particular syllable positions (first-order constraints) or to syllable positions depending on the identity of the adjacent vowel (second-order constraints). Later, in a headturn listening-preference task, infants were presented with new syllables that either followed the experimental constraints or violated them. Infants at both ages learned first- and second-order constraints on consonant position (Experiments 1 and 2) but found second-order constraints more difficult to learn (Experiment 2). Infants also spontaneously generalized first-order constraints to syllables containing a new, transfer vowel; they did so whether the transfer vowel was similar to the familiarization vowels (Experiment 3), or dissimilar from them (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that infants recruit representations of individuated segments during phonological learning. Furthermore, like adults, they represent phonological sequences in a flexible manner that allows them to detect patterns at multiple levels of phonological analysis.
AB - Infants rapidly learn novel phonotactic constraints from brief listening experience. Four experiments explored the nature of the representations underlying this learning. 16.5- and 10.5-month-old infants heard training syllables in which particular consonants were restricted to particular syllable positions (first-order constraints) or to syllable positions depending on the identity of the adjacent vowel (second-order constraints). Later, in a headturn listening-preference task, infants were presented with new syllables that either followed the experimental constraints or violated them. Infants at both ages learned first- and second-order constraints on consonant position (Experiments 1 and 2) but found second-order constraints more difficult to learn (Experiment 2). Infants also spontaneously generalized first-order constraints to syllables containing a new, transfer vowel; they did so whether the transfer vowel was similar to the familiarization vowels (Experiment 3), or dissimilar from them (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that infants recruit representations of individuated segments during phonological learning. Furthermore, like adults, they represent phonological sequences in a flexible manner that allows them to detect patterns at multiple levels of phonological analysis.
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U2 - 10.1080/15475441.2011.580447
DO - 10.1080/15475441.2011.580447
M3 - Article
C2 - 22511851
AN - SCOPUS:84859322618
SN - 1547-5441
VL - 7
SP - 287
EP - 308
JO - Language Learning and Development
JF - Language Learning and Development
IS - 4
ER -