Language Development and Infant Learning

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Questions and Answers

What linguistic category includes highly frequent words such as 'the', 'a', and 'his'?

Function words (correct)

Adjectives

Verbs

Proper nouns

At what age can infants use the article 'the' to segment nouns?

10 months

8 months (correct)

6 months

4 months

What is the significance of the order of words in the sentence 'The dog chased the squirrel in the park'?

It determines meaning and logical relations. (correct)

It serves no real purpose.

It helps to identify nouns present.

It highlights the subject only.

What can infants listen longer to in a test involving isolated words?

Words taught with a real function word Signup and view all the answers

What method do infants use to find words in speech streams?

Observing statistics of word frequency Signup and view all the answers

What term describes the perceptually distinct units of sound in a language that distinguish one word from another?

Phonemes Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best defines syntax in language?

Rules governing word order Signup and view all the answers

What do infants prefer to listen to, based on preference studies?

Their mother's voice Signup and view all the answers

What is prosody in terms of language?

The pattern of stress and intonation Signup and view all the answers

How do languages generally differ from one another?

In their prosodic patterns Signup and view all the answers

What is a common method used to measure infants' preferences in habituation studies?

Visual attention duration Signup and view all the answers

During which stage of development is the fetal auditory system fully functional?

Last trimester Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is NOT an aspect of language mentioned in the content?

Morphology Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary focus of the course PSYC 21021?

The development of unique human skills, particularly language Signup and view all the answers

What is one of the aims of the early language development segment?

To evaluate how social skills contribute to language acquisition Signup and view all the answers

Which part of the course discusses the importance of play in development?

Part II: How children learn to interact with others Signup and view all the answers

Who teaches the lecture on moral development?

Bahar Koymen Signup and view all the answers

What is meant by the term 'generative' in the context of language?

It signifies that language can create an infinite variety of expressions. Signup and view all the answers

What do 'intention reading' and 'social skills' involve in early language development?

Understanding and interpreting the intent behind communication Signup and view all the answers

In which weeks are early word learning concepts covered?

Weeks 3 Signup and view all the answers

What aspect of language acquisition is evaluated alongside early speech processing?

Social skills' role in language acquisition Signup and view all the answers

What influences the melodic quality of newborns' cries according to research?

Their native language Signup and view all the answers

At what age do infants begin to show a preference for their native language?

At two days old Signup and view all the answers

What skill is demonstrated by seven-month-old infants in linguistic research?

Rule learning Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following factors enhances word segmentation in infants?

Infant-directed speech Signup and view all the answers

What is one effect of linguistic experience observed in Japanese and English speakers?

Discrimination of the sounds [r] and [l] Signup and view all the answers

How does statistical learning manifest in infants according to research?

By recognizing patterns in spoken language Signup and view all the answers

Which research study focused on language discrimination by newborns?

Language discrimination by newborns: role of rhythm Signup and view all the answers

What concept is central to the 2004 overview by Kuhl regarding early language acquisition?

Cracking the speech code Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following statements about P-P-Y is true?

P-P-Y can be followed by either B-- or D-O. Signup and view all the answers

What effect does infant-directed speech (IDS) have on infants?

Infants segment speech better with IDS. Signup and view all the answers

In the context of language learning, highly frequent salient words serve what purpose?

They serve as anchors to identify word boundaries. Signup and view all the answers

How do 6-month-olds utilize familiar words in speech segmentation?

They recognize familiar words but fail to segment adjacent words. Signup and view all the answers

What is a characteristic of infant-directed speech (IDS)?

It has a higher pitch and exudes more emotional content. Signup and view all the answers

Why do infants listen longer to part-words over whole words in experimental studies?

They are more engaged due to the challenge of figuring them out. Signup and view all the answers

What conclusion can be drawn about the influence of prosody on infants' speech segmentation abilities?

Enhanced prosody helps infants to segment speech more effectively. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best describes the findings from the Jusczyk & Aslin (1995) study with 6-month-olds?

6-month-olds failed to recognize words based on familiar sounds. Signup and view all the answers

What does the study by Kuhl et al. (2006) focus on regarding infants?

Phonetic perception in relation to native language Signup and view all the answers

Which aspect of speech do infants rely on to assist in word segmentation according to Bortfeld et al. (2005)?

Familiar names Signup and view all the answers

What finding does Saffran, Aslin, and Newport's (1996) study reveal about 8-month-old infants?

They utilize statistical learning for word segmentation Signup and view all the answers

What effect does infant-directed speech have according to the research by Thiessen et al. (2005)?

It facilitates word segmentation Signup and view all the answers

What is the focus of the research conducted by Fló et al. (2019) regarding newborns?

Multiple cues for word segmentation Signup and view all the answers

Which research paper discusses infants' detection of sound patterns in fluent speech?

Jusczyk & Aslin (1995) Signup and view all the answers

What primary method do infants use to segment words as suggested in the study by Shi & Lepage (2008)?

Functional morphemes Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary focus of the study by Jusczyk and Aslin (1995)?

The recognition of word patterns in fluent speech Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Course Information

Course title: Topics and Issues in Developmental Psychology
Course code: PSYC 21021
Lecturer: Dr. Alissa Ferry
University: University of Manchester

Lecture 1: Prelinguistic Speech Processing

The course in Year 1 provides a broad overview of developmental psychology
PSYC 21021 focuses on the development of unique human skills, like communication and social-cognitive skills
Infants' early language acquisition is covered, including speech processing skills before language emerges

Lectures and Lecturers

Part I: How children learn language
- Early cognitive and social precursors to language development cover weeks 1 and 2 (taught by Alissa Ferry)
- Early word learning (week 3, Alissa Ferry)
- Combining words (weeks 4 & 5, Anna Theakston)
Part II: How children learn to interact with others
- Development of self-awareness (week 7)
- The importance of play (week 8)
- Moral development (week 9)
- Understanding others and theory of mind (week 10) (taught by Bahar Koymen)

Early Language Development: Overview

Early pre-linguistic skills (Lecture 1)
How do infants process speech?
Intention reading/social skills (Lecture 2)
How do infants communicate before language?
Early word learning (Lecture 3)
How do infants link sounds and meaning (word learning)?

Early Language Development: Aims

Document the early stages of language development.
Consider the role of early speech processing in language development
Evaluate how social skills affect language acquisition.
Evaluate how children learn word meanings.

Language Basics (1)

Language is generative.
Language comprises small units combined (phonology).
Language conveys meaning (semantics).

Language Basics (2)

Languages have rules about how words go together (syntax).
Examples of sentences: A bites the dog man, The dog bites a man, The man bites a dog.
Subject-verb-object is a structure in English.
Language is social.

Languages Across the World

Different languages have different ways of expressing greetings.
Examples of greetings in various languages are listed

Outline

What sounds are in my language? (prosody, phonemes)
How do I find the words? (statistics, prosody, frequency, pattern finding)
How are the words organized? (frequency, pattern finding)

Infant Designs

Preference studies: What do infants prefer to listen or look at?
Habituation/familiarisation studies: Train infants and then measure preferences
Change detection studies: Train infants to respond to change, and assess if infants can tell the difference between things

What sounds are in my language?

Prosody: the pattern of stress and intonation in language. Different languages have different prosodic patterns
Phonemes: perceptually distinct units of sound that distinguish words (e.g., p, b, d, t). Different languages use different phonemes.

Early Phonological Development: Prosody (1) and (2)

Fetal auditory system is fully functioning during the last trimester.
Infants prefer their mothers' voices.
Infants can distinguish between languages with different prosody, despite not being able to distinguish between languages with similar prosody (e.g., English/Dutch).
Infants cry with an "accent" reflecting their native language.

Early Phonological Development: Phonemes (1)

Phonemes are sounds that distinguish words (e.g., pat/bat, sip/zip).
Other languages may have different phoneme contrasts to English.
The world has around 600 consonants and 200 vowels, though any particular language uses about 40.
Children's babbling involves a wide variety of sounds which gradually narrow toward the target language's sounds during the first year.

Early Phonological Development: Phonemes (3)

At 1-2 months, infants can discriminate between all sounds, including foreign sounds.
Adults can only discern sounds in their native language
Between 7-11 months, infants show a decline in the ability to distinguish sounds from non-target languages, and an increase in their ability to distinguish sounds in their target language.

Finding the words (1)

Infants can distinguish words from their language around 7.5 months, but not at 6 months
The ability to recognize words in speech emerges by approximately 7.5 months

Finding the words (2)

Infants can segment words in their language from around 7.5 months, but not from 6 months
Infants can recognize words in speech within 7 to 7.5 months

Finding the words: Statistics (1)

Infants are skilled statisticians.
They track the co-occurrence of syllables.
Syllables that frequently co-occur are usually part of the same word

Finding the words: Statistics (2)

Experiments using 8-month-olds and made-up languages tested if infants could identify words from a continuous speech stream.
The infants listened for instances of whole words

Finding the words: Prosody (1)

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is used by caregivers.
IDS is characterized by higher pitch, slower speaking rates, and more exaggerated emphasis on important words, and phrase boundaries.
IDS makes segments simpler, aiding word recognition

Finding the words: Prosody (2)

Infants segment speech better when exposed to infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS)

Finding the words: Frequency (1)

Highly frequent and salient words, like "mummy," are easier for infants to learn (compared to other words)
Also highly frequent linguistic words, like "the" or "he/she", are easily detected.
These words function as anchors to identify boundaries of words in a speech stream

Finding the words: Frequency (2)

Highly familiar words (like the child's own name) assist infants in segmenting words.
Baby Maggie recognized words around her name; conversely, 6-month-olds struggle with this in the Jusczyk & Aslin (1995) study.

Finding the words: Frequency (3)

Some linguistic categories (like articles, and conjunctions) are more frequent and easier to learn.
Infants can use "the" to segment nouns by 8 months (Shi & Lepage, 2008).

Finding the patterns: Frequency (4)

Italian 8-month-olds are more attentive to frequent-first patterns; conversely, Japanese 8-month-olds are more attentive to frequent-final patterns
By 8 months, infants have begun to understand some ordering rules in their native language

Finding the patterns: Rule-Learning (1)

Syntax requires the learning of abstract rules in a language
Some examples of words that illustrate grammatical correctness/incorrectness are provided regarding the rules in a language: The red car (correct) vs. The car red (Incorrect); The boy is jumping (correct) vs. The boy is jump (incorrect); The girl eating cake is happy (correct) vs. The girls eating cake were happy (incorrect), etc.

Finding the patterns: Rule-Learning (2)

6-month-olds can learn abstract rules in language
Those familiarized to an ABA pattern listened longer to an ABB pattern.
Those familiarized to an ABB pattern listened longer to an ABA pattern

Conclusions and Issues

Infants show impressive language acquisition skills in their first year of life. That includes identifying sounds, statistics, patterns, and word boundaries.
Infants demonstrate early and specific preferences and skills for language acquisition.
Infants' tuning strategies (sounds and word orders) emerge before speech onset

Conclusions and Issues (critical analyses)

Assess how language acquisition skills explain the phenomenon.
Determine what additional information or factors may contribute to learning languages.
Note: Additional perspectives from different lectures are expected

Reference List (1) and (2)

A list of research papers related to early language acquisition is provided.
This list includes information on language learning at the infant stage.

Supplementary Reading (1) and (2)

Suggestions for further readings are presented.
The specific papers provide supplementary details to understand language learning at infancy.

Supplementary Videos

Some video resources (TED Talks, BBC documentaries, etc) are available for supplementary learning on infants and their language-tuning capabilities

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Description

Explore the fascinating aspects of language development in infants through this quiz. Discover how infants use sounds and words, the significance of syntax, and the methods researchers use to study language preferences. Perfect for students studying linguistics or psychology related to language acquisition.