Investigating the role of articulatory organs and perceptual assimilation in infants' discrimination of native and non‐native fricative place contrasts

Tyler, Michael D.; Best, Catherine T.; Goldstein, Louis; Antoniou, Mark

doi:10.1002/dev.21195

Cited by 30 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…In the current study, we used a perceptually similar contrast than those used in Liu and Kager (2014; Hume and Johnson, 2001), and a progression from 4 to 12 months was observed. A growing body of evidence shows that the perception of speech sounds does not follow a single developmental trajectory (Narayan et al, 2010; Liu and Kager, 2014; Mazuka et al, 2014; Tsuji and Cristia, 2014; Tyler et al, 2014), and infants do not completely lose sensitivity to non-native contrasts. Our results, together with these other studies, lead to the question of what underlies perceptual attunement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch

2017

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Pitch variation is pervasive in speech, regardless of the language to which infants are exposed. Lexical tone is influenced by general sensitivity to pitch. We examined whether the development in lexical tone perception may develop in parallel with perception of pitch in other cognitive domains namely music. Using a visual fixation paradigm, 100 and one 4- and 12-month-old Dutch infants were tested on their discrimination of Chinese rising and dipping lexical tones as well as comparable three-note musical pitch contours. The 4-month-old infants failed to show a discrimination effect in either condition, whereas the 12-month-old infants succeeded in both conditions. These results suggest that lexical tone perception may reflect and relate to general pitch perception abilities, which may serve as a basis for developing more complex language and musical skills.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch

2017

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“…Three studies found MAINTENANCE of initially-good discrimination from 6 through 12–14 months for non-native consonant place of articulation contrasts that are completely lacking even as allophones in the infants’ language environment. Specifically, English-learning infants show no decline across the first year in discrimination of the Zulu dental vs. lateral click consonants /ǀ/-/ǁ/ (Best, McRoberts, & Sithole, 1988; Best et al, 1995) and the Nuu Chah Nulth uvular vs. pharyngeal voiceless fricatives /χ/-/ħ/ (Tyler, Best, Goldstein, & Antoniou, 2014). The fourth study reported MAINTENANCE of English-learning infants’ good discrimination of the Tigrinya ejective stop contrast /p′/-/t′/, which uses a voicing manner that does not occur in native speech (Best & McRoberts, 2003).…”

Section: Infant Attunement To Native Speech: What Do We Know?mentioning

confidence: 98%

Articulating What Infants Attune to in Native Speech

Best

Goldstein

Nam

et al. 2016

Ecological Psychology

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To become language users, infants must embrace the integrality of speech perception and production. That they do so, and quite rapidly, is implied by the native-language attunement they achieve in each domain by 6–12 months. Yet research has most often addressed one or the other domain, rarely how they interrelate. Moreover, mainstream assumptions that perception relies on acoustic patterns whereas production involves motor patterns entail that the infant would have to translate incommensurable information to grasp the perception-production relationship. We posit the more parsimonious view that both domains depend on commensurate articulatory information. Our proposed framework combines principles of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) and Articulatory Phonology (AP). According to PAM, infants attune to articulatory information in native speech and detect similarities of non-native phones to native articulatory patterns. The AP premise that gestures of the speech organs are the basic elements of phonology offers articulatory similarity metrics, while satisfying the requirement that phonological information be discrete and contrastive: 1) distinct articulatory organs produce vocal tract constrictions; 2) phonological contrasts recruit different articulators, and/or constrictions of a given articulator that differ in degree or location. Various lines of research suggest young children perceive articulatory information, which guides their productions: discrimination of between- versus within-organ contrasts; simulations of attunement to language-specific articulatory distributions; multi-modal speech perception; oral/vocal imitation; perceptual effects of articulator activation or suppression. We conclude that articulatory gesture information serves as the foundation for developmental integrality of speech perception and production. … each blind man felt a part of the animal in his reach, reporting that it was like a wall; a snake; a tree; a fan … “Each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong”(Saxe, 1873, pp. 135–136)

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“…In L2 speech perception research, the fact that L2 learners often have difficulty categorising and discriminating L2 sound contrasts that do not exist in their L1 has been supported by many research findings (Tyler, Best, Goldstein, & Antoniou, 2014). L2 sounds are believed to be perceived through the L1 sound system (Best & Tyler, 2007;Escudero, 2005;Flege, 1995;Lado, 1957).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of L2 Experience and Vowel Context on the Perceptual Assimilation of English Fricatives by L2 Thai Learners

Kitikanan¹

2017

ELT

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The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of vowel context and language experience in the perceived similarity between L2 English fricatives and Thai sounds. The target English sounds being investigated were the sounds /v, f, w, θ, tʰ, s, ð, d, z, ʃ, t͡ ʃ/. These sounds were elicited from four native English speakers in words in onset position and followed by three vowel contexts: high, low and back. Subjects were 54 Thai students divided into two groups: English-major and non-English-major. These Thai learners were asked to identify the sounds they heard with the Thai sounds that were closest in their perception. The findings showed that 1) all shared sounds were matched with the same L1 categories, suggesting that the existence of L2 sounds in the L1 sound system supports the perception; 2) most non-shared sounds, except English /θ/ were matched to Thai sounds that were suggested in previous literature; 3) the perceived similarity of English /θ/ and the L1 Thai sounds showed the effect of the vowel context in that this sound was mostly matched with Thai /f/ in the high and low vowel contexts whereas in the back vowel context, it was matched with Thai /s/; 4) the perceived similarities of both shared and non-shared sounds were affected by vowel context and language experience. The findings of this study shed light on the importance exploring perceived similarities and differences in the phonetic level rather than the phonological one.

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Investigating the role of articulatory organs and perceptual assimilation in infants' discrimination of native and non‐native fricative place contrasts

Cited by 30 publications

References 59 publications

Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch

Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch

Articulating What Infants Attune to in Native Speech

The Effects of L2 Experience and Vowel Context on the Perceptual Assimilation of English Fricatives by L2 Thai Learners

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