TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of the acoustic properties of infant-directed speech on infant word recognition
AU - Song, Jae Yung
AU - Demuth, Katherine
AU - Morgan, James
N1 - Copyright (2010) Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America. The following article appeared in J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 128, Issue 1, pp. 389-400 (2010) and may be found at http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v128/i1/p389_s1.
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - A number of studies have examined the acoustic differences between infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech, suggesting that the exaggerated acoustic properties of IDS might facilitate infants' language development. However, there has been little empirical investigation of the acoustic properties that infants use for word learning. The goal of this study was thus to examine how 19-month-olds' word recognition is affected by three acoustic properties of IDS: slow speaking rate, vowel hyper-articulation, and wide pitch range. Using the intermodal preferential looking procedure, infants were exposed to half of the test stimuli (e.g., Where's the book?) in typical IDS style. The other half of the stimuli were digitally altered to remove one of the three properties under investigation. After the target word (e.g., book) was spoken, infants' gaze toward target and distractor referents was measured frame by frame to examine the time course of word recognition. The results showed that slow speaking rate and vowel hyper-articulation significantly improved infants' ability to recognize words, whereas wide pitch range did not. These findings suggest that 19-month-olds' word recognition may be affected only by the linguistically relevant acoustic properties in IDS.
AB - A number of studies have examined the acoustic differences between infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech, suggesting that the exaggerated acoustic properties of IDS might facilitate infants' language development. However, there has been little empirical investigation of the acoustic properties that infants use for word learning. The goal of this study was thus to examine how 19-month-olds' word recognition is affected by three acoustic properties of IDS: slow speaking rate, vowel hyper-articulation, and wide pitch range. Using the intermodal preferential looking procedure, infants were exposed to half of the test stimuli (e.g., Where's the book?) in typical IDS style. The other half of the stimuli were digitally altered to remove one of the three properties under investigation. After the target word (e.g., book) was spoken, infants' gaze toward target and distractor referents was measured frame by frame to examine the time course of word recognition. The results showed that slow speaking rate and vowel hyper-articulation significantly improved infants' ability to recognize words, whereas wide pitch range did not. These findings suggest that 19-month-olds' word recognition may be affected only by the linguistically relevant acoustic properties in IDS.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955195676&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1121/1.3419786
DO - 10.1121/1.3419786
M3 - Article
C2 - 20649233
AN - SCOPUS:77955195676
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 128
SP - 389
EP - 400
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 1
ER -