The Infancy of Infant Speech Perception: The First Decade of Research

Abstract

Studies of infant speech perception have focused primarily on the ability of young infants (a) to make simple auditory discriminations, (b) to categorically discriminate speech sounds and (c) to exhibit perceptual constancy for phonetic categories. The first decade of developmental literature for stop consonants, vowels, and other speech and nonspeech contrasts is examined from these three perspectives. In addition, research into the origins (ontogenetic and phylogenetic) of these abilities is discussed, along with the studies that have probed the psychological and physiological processes that underlie the infant''s speech perception accomplishments.

Perception of Conspecific Vocalizations by Japanese Macaques

“…We can eliminate the first alternative since infants and Japanese raised speaking English (or another language in which the /r/-/l/ distinction is made) can hear the distinction [Eimas, 1975;Miyawaki et al, 1975]. We cannot dis tinguish at present between the second and third alternatives [for a review of this literature see papers by Morse, 1979;Kuhl, 1979].…”

“…We specifically exclude these surplus connotations: that the mechanism is 'innate', genetically-specified or in dependent of experience. Our behavioral studies would logically be com plemented by well-designed developmental studies which analyze the rela tive roles of genetic mechanisms and experience in the ontogeny of such processing mechanisms [Mailer, 1970;Morse, 1979;Kuhl, 1979] (also see 'Discussion'). The term 'strategy' could be used interchangeably with 'mechanism'; the point is that logically there must be a neural substrate for this mechanism/strategy, and though with these experiments we can not specify its origin or its location, we can build a case for its existence.…”

Auditory evoked responses to names for different objects: Cross-modal processing as a basis for infant language acquisition.

“…The interest of developmental psychologists in the early stages of language perception has increased markedly over the last two decades. For the most part, much of this interest has focused on the infant's perception of speech sounds prior to the development of comprehension for single words or the use of one- and two-word utterances (see Eimas, Miller, & Jusczyk, 1987; Kuhl, 1985; and Morse, 1974, 1979; for reviews of this literature). Other investigations have begun to probe the nature of the older infant's early word meanings (Bloom, Lahey, Hood, Lifter, & Fiess, 1980; Clark, 1983; Retherford, Schwartz, & Chapman, 1981; Snyder, Bates, & Bretherton, 1981).…”

Otitis media and language development in late talkers

“…The model hypothesizes that mild hearing loss can even affect a child during the prelinguistic period because it interferes with speech perception. A newborn infant who is developing normally is capable of discriminating speech from other sounds in the environment (Morse, 1979) and by two months is capable of discriminating different speech sounds (Owens, 1988). A mild hearing loss can affect the child's development of these auditory skills (Welsh, Welsh, & Healy, 1983), which could have serious implications for language development.…”