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Perceptual reorganization of tone: Recent findings from the Utrecht baby lab| old_uid | 13667 |
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| title | Perceptual reorganization of tone: Recent findings from the Utrecht baby lab |
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| start_date | 2014/03/24 |
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| schedule | 11h-12h30 |
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| online | no |
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| summary | In this talk I will present some recent studies from our baby lab into the perception of lexical tones by non-tone-language-learning infants, based on ongoing work with Liquan Liu. The studies address the development of tone/pitch perception during the first year of life. We focus on three aspects: (a) the discrimination of tone, (b) sensitivity to tone in word learning, and (c) perceptual differences between monolingual and bilingual infants.
The first study (Liu & Kager, 2012, in preparation) addresses the development of tone discrimination in monolingual and bilingual infants’. Dutch infants in five age groups (spanning a range 5-18 months) were tested on their ability to discriminate a tonal contrast of Mandarin Chinese and a contracted tonal contrast. Monolingual and bilingual infants were able to discriminate the tonal contrasts at 5-6 months, while their tonal sensitivity deteriorates around 9 months, in accordance with earlier studies. However, the sensitivity recovered between 14-18 months in monolingual infants, and between 11-12 months in bilingual infants. Our findings reveal a U-shaped pattern in non-tone-learning infants' tone perception, with a bilingual sensitivity advantage. I will discuss some interpretations of these results relating to the acquisition of the native intonation system, and to a (delayed) development of phonological categories accompanied by maintained acoustic sensitivity in bilinguals.
In the second study (Liu & Kager, 2013, in preparation), Dutch 14-15-month-old and 17-18 month-old monolingual infants were tested via an adjusted associative word learning paradigm on their ability to use pitch information linguistically. The stimuli contained the same natural Mandarin tonal contrast as used in the first study. Results showed that 14-15-month-old infants were able to set up a tone contrast for the purposes of word learning whereas such ability was lost at 17-18 months.
Linking the two studies, we found that acoustic sensitivity to lexical tone contrasts remains in infants at 17-18 months although the linguistic function is lost. This shows that the U-shaped developmental pattern does not lead to a recovery of phonological sensitivity, but only of acoustic sensitivity. In line with previous literature (Stager & Werker, 1997), we confirmed that a discrimination task heightens the acoustic sensitivity, whereas a word learning task does not. The novel finding is that this finding is extended to a non-native contrast. |
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| responsibles | Rämä, Izard |
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