Finding the Signal by Adding Noise
The Role of Noncontrastive Phonetic Variability in Early Word Learning
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16782853 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gwyneth C Rost (University of Iowa, corresponding author), Bob Mcmurray (0000-0002-6532-284X, University of Iowa) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 608-635 |
| Publication date | 2010-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Infancy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1525-0008 • E-ISSN: 1532-7078 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00033.x |
| PMID | 24358016 |
| PMCID | PMC3865991 |
| OpenAlex | W1543848555 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 57 |
| References cited | 76 |
It is well attested that 14‐month‐olds have difficulty learning similar sounding words (e.g., bih/dih), despite their excellent phonetic discrimination abilities. By contrast, Rost and McMurray (2009) recently demonstrated that 14‐month‐olds’ minimal‐pair learning can be improved by the presentation of words by multiple talkers. This study investigates which components of the variability found in multitalker input improved infants’ processing, assessing both the phonologically contrastive aspects of the speech stream and phonologically irrelevant indexical and suprasegmental aspects. In the first two experiments, speaker was held constant while cues to word‐initial voicing were systematically manipulated. Infants failed in both cases. The third experiment introduced variability in speaker, but voicing cues were invariant within each category. Infants in this condition learned the words. We conclude that aspects of the speech signal that have been typically thought of as noise are in fact valuable information—signal—for the young word learner
Cognitive psychology · Linguistics · Speech recognition · Voice · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Artificial Intelligence
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Infant preference for specific phonetic cue relations in the contrast between voiced and voiceless stops
Statistical learning in reading
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Does Infant‐Directed Speech Help Phonetic Learning? A Machine Learning Investigation
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Talker Variation Aids Young Infants’ Phonotactic Learning
Are Words Easier to Learn From Infant‐ Than Adult‐Directed Speech? A Quantitative Corpus‐Based Investigation
Listening to different talkers and its effect on word identification for children using hearing devices
Is 10 Better than 1? The Effect of Speaker Variability on Children’s Cross-Situational Word Learning
The effects of speaker and exemplar variability in children’s cross-situational word learning
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A protracted developmental trajectory for English-learning children’s detection of consonant mispronunciations in newly learned words
Does high variability training improve the learning of non-native phoneme contrasts over low variability training? A replication
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Wordform variability in infants’ language environment and its effects on early word learning
Auditory category learning is robust across training regimes
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Monodialectal and multidialectal infants’ representation of familiar words
Cross-talker lexical tone discrimination in infancy
Toddlers raised in multi-dialectal families learn words better in accented speech than those raised in monodialectal families
Twenty-month-olds categorically discriminate similar sounding vowels regardless of vocabulary level, an event related potentials (ERP) study
Impact of talker variability on language development in two-year-olds
Mothers’ and fathers’ infant-directed speech have similar acoustic properties, but these are not associated with direct or indirect measures of word comprehension in 8-month-old infants
Lexical and Prosodic Pitch Modifications in Cantonese Infant-directed Speech
Subsegmental representation in child speech production
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The acquisition of L2 allophonic variants
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A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis of the acoustic features of infant-directed speech
Talker variability shapes early word representations in English‐learning 8‐month‐olds
Infant‐Directed Prosody Helps Infants Map Sounds to Meanings
Object Familiarity Enhances Infants’ Use of Phonetic Detail in Novel Words
The Use of Pitch Accent in Word–Object Association by Monolingual Japanese Infants
Infants’ Discrimination of Familiar and Unfamiliar Accents in Speech
Infants' discrimination of consonant contrasts in the presence and absence of talker variability
Mothers’ Work Status and 17‐Month‐Olds’ Productive Vocabulary
The graded effects of bilingualism and language ability on children’s cross-situational word learning
Early L2 Spoken Word Recognition Combines Input-Based and Knowledge-Based Processing
Apparent Talker Variability and Speaking Style Similarity Can Enhance Comprehension of Novel L2-Accented Talkers
Impact of late to moderate preterm birth on minimal pair word-learning
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How Talker Identity Relates to Language Processing
Sounds and Meanings Working Together
The Emergence of the Allophonic Perception of Unfamiliar Speech Sounds
Cognitive factors in nonnative phonetic learning
Lexical representations can rapidly be updated in the early stages of second-language word learning
Is talker variability a critical component of effective phonetic training for nonnative speech
Human adults and human infants show a “perceptual magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not
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Cross-Language Analysis of Phonetic Units in Language Addressed to Infants
Infant sensitivity to distributional information can affect phonetic discrimination
Lexical development norms for young children
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Primir
Recognizing Spoken Words
Echoes of echoes? An episodic theory of lexical access.
Infants listen for more phonetic detail in speech perception than in word-learning tasks
Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels
Speech Perception in Infants
Rapid Word Learning Under Uncertainty via Cross-Situational Statistics
Variability and Detection of Invariant Structure
Cross-language speech perception
Acoustic characteristics of English fricatives
Speech Perception as a Talker-Contingent Process
Speaker variability augments phonological processing in early word learning
Learning at a distance I. Statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies
Statistical phonetic learning in infants
Phonological specificity in children at 1;2
Statistical Language Learning
Better Processing of Consonantal Over Vocalic Information in Word Learning at 16 Months of Age
Infants' Ability to Learn Phonetically Similar Words
Infant‐Directed Speech Facilitates Word Segmentation
Early Word Learners' Ability to Access Phonetic Detail in Well-Known Words
Phonetic Diversity, Statistical Learning, and Acquisition of Phonology
By land or by sea
Acquisition of word–object associations by 14-month-old infants
The effect of talker variability on word recognition in preschool children
Effects of speaking rate on voice-onset time and vowel production
Perceptual development of the categorization of the /r-w/ contrast in normal children
Perceptual development for labeling words varying in voice onset time and fundamental frequency
Unmasking the acoustic effects of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation
Speech perception
A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops
The Perceptual Acquisition of Phonological Contrasts
| Unique citing works | 57 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,8 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 51 |