Daniel Swingley
Biographic Data
| ID | 1464499 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel Swingley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel |
| FAMILY NAME | Swingley |
| SIGNATURE | SWINGLEY D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2891-0175 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Phonological representation in English-learning infants’ word comprehension.
057) when including all items but significant for items with balanced salience (odds ratio = 1.51). Twelve- to 14-month olds consistently fixated targets less when hearing mispronunciations (odds ratio = 1.59). These findings set a lower bound on how vague early word representations could be and are consistent with phonologically accurate encoding of at least some words before the first birthday. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights…
The intelligibility of consonants in American English infant-directed speech
To begin learning their language, infants must locate words in the speech signal. Some models of word discovery presuppose that the discovery process depends on identifying phonetic segments (phones) in speech. To test the plausibility of models arguing that infants can reliably categorize consonants in speech, adult native speakers were asked to identify the consonant in vowel-consonant-vowel sequences extracted from spontaneous English infant-d…
The clarity of word repetitions in American English infant-directed speech
Words in infant-directed speech (IDS) are often phonetically reduced. This likely renders words harder for infants to learn and recognize. This difficulty might be mitigated by the repetitive nature of IDS, in particular if reduced instances are often preceded by clear instances (i.e., the first-mention effect). To characterize phonetic clarity in American English word repetitions, words were extracted from the IDS of eight mothers and presented …
Developmental change in English‐learning children's interpretations of salient pitch contours in word learning
To efficiently recognize words, children learning an intonational language like English should avoid interpreting pitch‐contour variation as signaling lexical contrast, despite the relevance of pitch at other levels of structure. Thus far, the developmental time‐course with which English‐learning children rule out pitch as a contrastive feature has been incompletely characterized. Prior studies have tested diverse lexical contrasts and have not t…
A protracted developmental trajectory for English-learning children’s detection of consonant mispronunciations in newly learned words
Children are adept at learning their language's speech-sound categories, but just how these categories function in their developing lexicon has not been mapped out in detail. Here, we addressed whether, in a language-guided looking procedure, two-year-olds would respond to a mispronunciation of the voicing of the initial consonant of a newly learned word. First, to provide a baseline of mature native-speaker performance, adults were taught a new …
Consequences of phonological variation for algorithmic word segmentation
A Cross‐linguistic Examination of Toddlers’ Interpretation of Vowel Duration
Languages differ in their phonological use of vowel duration. For the child, learning how duration contributes to lexical contrast is complicated because segmental duration is implicated in many different linguistic distinctions. Using a language‐guided looking task, we measured English and Dutch 21‐month‐olds’ recognition of familiar words with normal or manipulated vowel durations. Dutch but not English learners were affected by duration change…
The infant's developmental path in phonological acquisition
Research on how language acquisition begins has been fragmented both in terms of scientific communities and in terms of the phenomena that are taken to characterize developmental progress. In her article, Marilyn Vihman argues for an integrative approach that takes the child's efforts at speech production as primary, and notes that infants' knowledge of how words sound may accrue over a protracted period developmentally. Here, I briefly discuss h…
Two-year-olds interpret novel phonological neighbors as familiar words
When children hear a novel word in a context presenting a novel object and a familiar one, they usually assume that the novel word refers to the novel object. In a series of experiments, we tested whether this behavior would be found when 2-year-olds interpreted novel words that differed phonologically from familiar words in only 1 sound, either a vowel or consonant. Under these conditions children almost always chose the familiar object, though …
At 6–9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns
It is widely accepted that infants begin learning their native language not by learning words, but by discovering features of the speech signal: consonants, vowels, and combinations of these sounds. Learning to understand words, as opposed to just perceiving their sounds, is said to come later, between 9 and 15 mo of age, when infants develop a capacity for interpreting others’ goals and intentions. Here, we demonstrate that this consensus about …
Lexical exposure and word-form encoding in 1.5-year-olds
In this study, 1.5-year-olds were taught a novel word. Some children were familiarized with the word's phonological form before learning the word's meaning. Fidelity of phonological encoding was tested in a picture-fixation task using correctly pronounced and mispronounced stimuli. Only children with additional exposure in familiarization showed reduced recognition performance given slight mispronunciations relative to correct pronunciations; chi…
Phonetic Detail in the Developing Lexicon
Although infants show remarkable sensitivity to linguistically relevant phonetic variation in speech, young children sometimes appear not to make use of this sensitivity. Here, children's knowledge of the soundforms of familiar words was assessed using a visual fixation task. Dutch 19-month-olds were shown pairs of pictures and heard correct pronunciations and mispronunciations of familiar words naming one of the pictures. Mispronunciations were …
Lexical Neighborhoods and the Word-Form Representations of 14-Month-Olds
The degree to which infants represent phonetic detail in words has been a source of controversy in phonology and developmental psychology. One prominent hypothesis holds that infants store words in a vague or inaccurate form until the learning of similar-sounding neighbors forces attention to subtle phonetic distinctions. In the experiment reported here, we used a visual fixation task to assess word recognition. We present the first evidence indi…
Spoken word recognition and lexical representation in very young children
Rapid Gains in Speed of Verbal Processing by Infants in the 2nd Year
Infants improve substantially in language ability during their 2nd year. Research on the early development of speech production shows that vocabulary begins to expand rapidly around the age of 18 months. During this period, infants also make impressive gains in understanding spoken language. We examined the time course of word recognition in infants ages 15 to 24 months, tracking their eye movements as they looked at pictures in response to famil…
Phonetic Detail in the Developing Lexicon
Although infants show remarkable sensitivity to linguistically relevant phonetic variation in speech, young children sometimes appear not to make use of this sensitivity. Here, children's knowledge of the soundforms of familiar words was assessed using a visual fixation task. Dutch 19-month-olds were shown pairs of pictures and heard correct pronunciations and mispronunciations of familiar words naming one of the pictures. Mispronunciations were …
Lexical exposure and word-form encoding in 1.5-year-olds
In this study, 1.5-year-olds were taught a novel word. Some children were familiarized with the word's phonological form before learning the word's meaning. Fidelity of phonological encoding was tested in a picture-fixation task using correctly pronounced and mispronounced stimuli. Only children with additional exposure in familiarization showed reduced recognition performance given slight mispronunciations relative to correct pronunciations; chi…
Two-year-olds interpret novel phonological neighbors as familiar words
When children hear a novel word in a context presenting a novel object and a familiar one, they usually assume that the novel word refers to the novel object. In a series of experiments, we tested whether this behavior would be found when 2-year-olds interpreted novel words that differed phonologically from familiar words in only 1 sound, either a vowel or consonant. Under these conditions children almost always chose the familiar object, though …
The infant's developmental path in phonological acquisition
Research on how language acquisition begins has been fragmented both in terms of scientific communities and in terms of the phenomena that are taken to characterize developmental progress. In her article, Marilyn Vihman argues for an integrative approach that takes the child's efforts at speech production as primary, and notes that infants' knowledge of how words sound may accrue over a protracted period developmentally. Here, I briefly discuss h…
Rapid Gains in Speed of Verbal Processing by Infants in the 2nd Year
Infants improve substantially in language ability during their 2nd year. Research on the early development of speech production shows that vocabulary begins to expand rapidly around the age of 18 months. During this period, infants also make impressive gains in understanding spoken language. We examined the time course of word recognition in infants ages 15 to 24 months, tracking their eye movements as they looked at pictures in response to famil…
Spoken word recognition and lexical representation in very young children
Lexical Neighborhoods and the Word-Form Representations of 14-Month-Olds
The degree to which infants represent phonetic detail in words has been a source of controversy in phonology and developmental psychology. One prominent hypothesis holds that infants store words in a vague or inaccurate form until the learning of similar-sounding neighbors forces attention to subtle phonetic distinctions. In the experiment reported here, we used a visual fixation task to assess word recognition. We present the first evidence indi…
Phonetic Detail in the Developing Lexicon
Although infants show remarkable sensitivity to linguistically relevant phonetic variation in speech, young children sometimes appear not to make use of this sensitivity. Here, children's knowledge of the soundforms of familiar words was assessed using a visual fixation task. Dutch 19-month-olds were shown pairs of pictures and heard correct pronunciations and mispronunciations of familiar words naming one of the pictures. Mispronunciations were …
Lexical exposure and word-form encoding in 1.5-year-olds
In this study, 1.5-year-olds were taught a novel word. Some children were familiarized with the word's phonological form before learning the word's meaning. Fidelity of phonological encoding was tested in a picture-fixation task using correctly pronounced and mispronounced stimuli. Only children with additional exposure in familiarization showed reduced recognition performance given slight mispronunciations relative to correct pronunciations; chi…
At 6–9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns
It is widely accepted that infants begin learning their native language not by learning words, but by discovering features of the speech signal: consonants, vowels, and combinations of these sounds. Learning to understand words, as opposed to just perceiving their sounds, is said to come later, between 9 and 15 mo of age, when infants develop a capacity for interpreting others’ goals and intentions. Here, we demonstrate that this consensus about …
Two-year-olds interpret novel phonological neighbors as familiar words
When children hear a novel word in a context presenting a novel object and a familiar one, they usually assume that the novel word refers to the novel object. In a series of experiments, we tested whether this behavior would be found when 2-year-olds interpreted novel words that differed phonologically from familiar words in only 1 sound, either a vowel or consonant. Under these conditions children almost always chose the familiar object, though …
The infant's developmental path in phonological acquisition
Research on how language acquisition begins has been fragmented both in terms of scientific communities and in terms of the phenomena that are taken to characterize developmental progress. In her article, Marilyn Vihman argues for an integrative approach that takes the child's efforts at speech production as primary, and notes that infants' knowledge of how words sound may accrue over a protracted period developmentally. Here, I briefly discuss h…
A Cross‐linguistic Examination of Toddlers’ Interpretation of Vowel Duration
Languages differ in their phonological use of vowel duration. For the child, learning how duration contributes to lexical contrast is complicated because segmental duration is implicated in many different linguistic distinctions. Using a language‐guided looking task, we measured English and Dutch 21‐month‐olds’ recognition of familiar words with normal or manipulated vowel durations. Dutch but not English learners were affected by duration change…
A protracted developmental trajectory for English-learning children’s detection of consonant mispronunciations in newly learned words
Children are adept at learning their language's speech-sound categories, but just how these categories function in their developing lexicon has not been mapped out in detail. Here, we addressed whether, in a language-guided looking procedure, two-year-olds would respond to a mispronunciation of the voicing of the initial consonant of a newly learned word. First, to provide a baseline of mature native-speaker performance, adults were taught a new …
Consequences of phonological variation for algorithmic word segmentation
Developmental change in English‐learning children's interpretations of salient pitch contours in word learning
To efficiently recognize words, children learning an intonational language like English should avoid interpreting pitch‐contour variation as signaling lexical contrast, despite the relevance of pitch at other levels of structure. Thus far, the developmental time‐course with which English‐learning children rule out pitch as a contrastive feature has been incompletely characterized. Prior studies have tested diverse lexical contrasts and have not t…
The intelligibility of consonants in American English infant-directed speech
To begin learning their language, infants must locate words in the speech signal. Some models of word discovery presuppose that the discovery process depends on identifying phonetic segments (phones) in speech. To test the plausibility of models arguing that infants can reliably categorize consonants in speech, adult native speakers were asked to identify the consonant in vowel-consonant-vowel sequences extracted from spontaneous English infant-d…
The clarity of word repetitions in American English infant-directed speech
Words in infant-directed speech (IDS) are often phonetically reduced. This likely renders words harder for infants to learn and recognize. This difficulty might be mitigated by the repetitive nature of IDS, in particular if reduced instances are often preceded by clear instances (i.e., the first-mention effect). To characterize phonetic clarity in American English word repetitions, words were extracted from the IDS of eight mothers and presented …
Phonological representation in English-learning infants’ word comprehension.
057) when including all items but significant for items with balanced salience (odds ratio = 1.51). Twelve- to 14-month olds consistently fixated targets less when hearing mispronunciations (odds ratio = 1.59). These findings set a lower bound on how vague early word representations could be and are consistent with phonologically accurate encoding of at least some words before the first birthday. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights…
Language Development and Disorders (14 works) · Linguistics (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (10 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works) · Vocabulary (6 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (5 works) · Language development (5 works)