Titia Benders
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 1464751 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Titia Benders |
| PRENOMES | Titia |
| SOBRENOME | Benders |
| ASSINATURA | BENDERS T |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0143-2182 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 19 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 49 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 19 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2009 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Real-time spoken word recognition in deaf and hard of hearing preschoolers
This study investigates how phonological competition affects real-time spoken word recognition in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) preschoolers compared to peers with hearing in the normal range (NH). Three-to-six-year olds (27 with NH, 18 DHH, including uni- and bilateral hearing losses) were instructed to look at pictures that corresponded to words alongside a phonological competitor (e.g., / b in- p in /) vs. an unrelated distractor (e.g., / t o…
Due to increased variability, the expanded vowel and tone space in Mandarin IDS does not lead to enhanced contrasts
Expanded vowel or tone space in IDS has traditionally been interpreted as evidence of enhanced acoustic contrasts. However, emerging evidence from various languages shows that the within-category acoustic variability of vowels and tones also increases in IDS, offsetting the benefit of space expansion and leading to non-enhanced, or reduced acoustic contrasts. This study re-analysed a corpus of Mandarin IDS and ADS, showing that, relative to ADS, …
Tongue root harmony cues for speech segmentation in multilingually raised infants learning languages with and without vowel harmony in Ghana (Africa)
This study investigated the hypothesis that 9- to 11-month-old multilingual infants learning Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony languages (such as Akan) alongside other non-vowel harmony languages in Ghana (Africa) can use ATR harmony cues for speech segmentation. Using the central fixation procedure, infants were familiarized with bisyllabic words in two passages, one with ATR cues and one without, and then tested on isolated familiarized and no…
The acquisition of plain–emphatic consonant contrasts by Arabic-speaking children
Arabic emphatic consonants are claimed to be late-acquired, likely due to their motoric complexity, involving both coronal and pharyngeal/uvular constrictions. Children’s production has largely been studied using impressionistic data, with limited acoustic analysis. This study acoustically examines the acquisition of emphatic consonants in Saudi-Hijazi Arabic-speaking children aged 3–6 years. Thirty-eight children performed a real-word repetition…
Exploring the nature of multilingual input to infants in multiple caregiver families in an African city
Examining the language input experiences of infants growing up in multilingual African environments is essential to understanding their language acquisition. We explored the language input to 3;0–12;0-month-old infants ( N = 121) in Ghana (Sub-Saharan Africa), a non-Western and less-economically rich social context and highly multilingual country. Data collection involved an interview assessment, followed by caregivers completing a 12-hour logboo…
Acoustic exaggeration of vowels in infant-directed speech
There is a long-standing debate about the extent to which vowel hyperarticulation, the production of acoustically exaggerated vowels, occurs in infant-directed speech (IDS). This exaggeration has been argued to result in clearer speech sounds that are easier for infants to process and might be positively related to infants' linguistic outcomes. However, previous findings regarding the presence of vowel hyperarticulation in IDS are seemingly incon…
Vowel harmony preferences in infants growing up in multilingual Ghana (Africa)
Infants' preference for vowel harmony (VH, a phonotactic constraint that requires vowels in a word to be featurally similar) is thought to be language-specific: Monolingual infants learning VH languages show a listening preference for VH patterns by 6 months of age, while those learning non-VH languages do not (Gonzalez-Gomez et al., 2019; Van Kampen et al., 2008). We investigated sensitivity to advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony in Akan (Kwa, Ni…
Diversifying language acquisition research can be (partly) achieved in urban societies and with simplified methodologies
There is a large consensus (e.g., Cristia, Foushee, Aravena-Bravo, Cychosz, Scaff & Casillas, 2023; Kidd & Garcia, 2022) that diversification in language acquisition research is needed. Cristia et al. (2023) convincingly argue for studying language acquisition in rural populations and recommend combining observational and experimental approaches in doing so. In this commentary, we identify that diversification efforts must also include children g…
Computational modelling of language acquisition
One approach to studying how children acquire language is to simulate language acquisition through computational modelling. Computational models implement theories of language acquisition and simulation outcomes can then be tested against existing real-world data or in new empirical research. It is more than ten years ago that Journal of Child Language published a special issue on the topic, edited and introduced by Brian MacWhinney (MacWhinney, …
Towards Diversifying Early Language Development Research
A survey of diversity in leading language acquisition journals revealed that only 2% of the 7,000+ languages of the world are represented. With a long-term aim of empowering researchers everywhere to contribute to this literature, we organized the First Truly Global /L+/ International Summer/Winter School on Language Acquisition (/L+/). /L+/ was a free 5-day virtual school that facilitated the interchange of expertise among early career researche…
Feature generalization in Dutch–German bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production
Dutch and German employ voicing contrasts, but Dutch lacks the ‘voiced’ dorsal plosive /ɡ/. We exploited this accidental phonological gap, measuring the presence of prevoicing and voice onset time durations during speech production to determine (1) whether preliterate bilingual Dutch–German and monolingual Dutch-speaking children aged 3;6–6;0 years generalized voicing to /ɡ/ in Dutch; and (2) whether there was evidence for featural cross-linguist…
Phonological features emerge substance-freely from the phonetics and the morphology
Theories of phonology claim variously that phonological elements are either innate or emergent, and either substance-full or substance-free. A hitherto underdeveloped source of evidence for choosing between the four possible combinations of these claims lies in showing precisely how a child can acquire phonological elements. This article presents computer simulations that showcase a learning algorithm with which the learner creates phonological e…
Infant-directed Speech by Dutch Fathers
Although both fathers and mothers speak differently in infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS), the acoustic characteristics of present-day paternal IDS are still insufficiently understood. To extend this understanding, 11 fathers and 17 mothers in The Netherlands were recorded interacting with their infant (260–476 days old; for IDS) and with an adult experimenter (for ADS). Both fathers and mothers were found to rai…
Six‐month‐old infants recognize phrases in song and speech
Infants exploit acoustic boundaries to perceptually organize phrases in speech. This prosodic parsing ability is well‐attested and is a cornerstone to the development of speech perception and grammar. However, infants also receive linguistic input in child songs. This study provides evidence that infants parse songs into meaningful phrasal units and replicates previous research for speech. Six‐month‐old Dutch infants (n = 80) were tested in the s…
Six‐Month‐Old Infants Prefer Speech with Raised Formant Frequencies
Voices can be characterized by their fundamental frequency as well as by speech timbre characteristics, such as formant frequencies. While infants' responses to fundamental frequency characteristics are well established, very little is known about how infants respond to changes in formant frequencies. This study tested whether 6‐month‐old infants prefer listening to speech with raised formant frequencies over speech with lowered formant frequenci…
Second language attainment and first language attrition
Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of Dutch-German late bilinguals in the Netherlands. One group comprises native speakers …
An evidence accumulation model of acoustic cue weighting in vowel perception
Dutch and English toddlers' use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions
Adults achieve successful coordination during conversation by using prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to predict upcoming changes in speakership. We examined the relative weight of these linguistic cues in the prediction of upcoming turn structure by toddlers learning Dutch (Experiment 1; N = 21) and British English (Experiment 2; N = 20) and adult control participants (Dutch: N = 16; English: N = 20). We tracked participants' anticipatory eye mo…
Native, non-native and L2 perceptual cue weighting for Dutch vowels
Native, non-native and L2 perceptual cue weighting for Dutch vowels
Second language attainment and first language attrition
Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of Dutch-German late bilinguals in the Netherlands. One group comprises native speakers …
Dutch and English toddlers' use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions
Adults achieve successful coordination during conversation by using prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to predict upcoming changes in speakership. We examined the relative weight of these linguistic cues in the prediction of upcoming turn structure by toddlers learning Dutch (Experiment 1; N = 21) and British English (Experiment 2; N = 20) and adult control participants (Dutch: N = 16; English: N = 20). We tracked participants' anticipatory eye mo…
An evidence accumulation model of acoustic cue weighting in vowel perception
Vowel harmony preferences in infants growing up in multilingual Ghana (Africa)
Infants' preference for vowel harmony (VH, a phonotactic constraint that requires vowels in a word to be featurally similar) is thought to be language-specific: Monolingual infants learning VH languages show a listening preference for VH patterns by 6 months of age, while those learning non-VH languages do not (Gonzalez-Gomez et al., 2019; Van Kampen et al., 2008). We investigated sensitivity to advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony in Akan (Kwa, Ni…
Native, non-native and L2 perceptual cue weighting for Dutch vowels
Dutch and English toddlers' use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions
Adults achieve successful coordination during conversation by using prosodic and lexicosyntactic cues to predict upcoming changes in speakership. We examined the relative weight of these linguistic cues in the prediction of upcoming turn structure by toddlers learning Dutch (Experiment 1; N = 21) and British English (Experiment 2; N = 20) and adult control participants (Dutch: N = 16; English: N = 20). We tracked participants' anticipatory eye mo…
Six‐Month‐Old Infants Prefer Speech with Raised Formant Frequencies
Voices can be characterized by their fundamental frequency as well as by speech timbre characteristics, such as formant frequencies. While infants' responses to fundamental frequency characteristics are well established, very little is known about how infants respond to changes in formant frequencies. This study tested whether 6‐month‐old infants prefer listening to speech with raised formant frequencies over speech with lowered formant frequenci…
Second language attainment and first language attrition
Speech of late bilinguals has frequently been described in terms of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the native language (L1) to the second language (L2), but CLI from the L2 to the L1 has received relatively little attention. This article addresses L2 attainment and L1 attrition in voicing systems through measures of voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of Dutch-German late bilinguals in the Netherlands. One group comprises native speakers …
An evidence accumulation model of acoustic cue weighting in vowel perception
Six‐month‐old infants recognize phrases in song and speech
Infants exploit acoustic boundaries to perceptually organize phrases in speech. This prosodic parsing ability is well‐attested and is a cornerstone to the development of speech perception and grammar. However, infants also receive linguistic input in child songs. This study provides evidence that infants parse songs into meaningful phrasal units and replicates previous research for speech. Six‐month‐old Dutch infants (n = 80) were tested in the s…
Infant-directed Speech by Dutch Fathers
Although both fathers and mothers speak differently in infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS), the acoustic characteristics of present-day paternal IDS are still insufficiently understood. To extend this understanding, 11 fathers and 17 mothers in The Netherlands were recorded interacting with their infant (260–476 days old; for IDS) and with an adult experimenter (for ADS). Both fathers and mothers were found to rai…
Feature generalization in Dutch–German bilingual and monolingual children’s speech production
Dutch and German employ voicing contrasts, but Dutch lacks the ‘voiced’ dorsal plosive /ɡ/. We exploited this accidental phonological gap, measuring the presence of prevoicing and voice onset time durations during speech production to determine (1) whether preliterate bilingual Dutch–German and monolingual Dutch-speaking children aged 3;6–6;0 years generalized voicing to /ɡ/ in Dutch; and (2) whether there was evidence for featural cross-linguist…
Phonological features emerge substance-freely from the phonetics and the morphology
Theories of phonology claim variously that phonological elements are either innate or emergent, and either substance-full or substance-free. A hitherto underdeveloped source of evidence for choosing between the four possible combinations of these claims lies in showing precisely how a child can acquire phonological elements. This article presents computer simulations that showcase a learning algorithm with which the learner creates phonological e…
Diversifying language acquisition research can be (partly) achieved in urban societies and with simplified methodologies
There is a large consensus (e.g., Cristia, Foushee, Aravena-Bravo, Cychosz, Scaff & Casillas, 2023; Kidd & Garcia, 2022) that diversification in language acquisition research is needed. Cristia et al. (2023) convincingly argue for studying language acquisition in rural populations and recommend combining observational and experimental approaches in doing so. In this commentary, we identify that diversification efforts must also include children g…
Computational modelling of language acquisition
One approach to studying how children acquire language is to simulate language acquisition through computational modelling. Computational models implement theories of language acquisition and simulation outcomes can then be tested against existing real-world data or in new empirical research. It is more than ten years ago that Journal of Child Language published a special issue on the topic, edited and introduced by Brian MacWhinney (MacWhinney, …
Towards Diversifying Early Language Development Research
A survey of diversity in leading language acquisition journals revealed that only 2% of the 7,000+ languages of the world are represented. With a long-term aim of empowering researchers everywhere to contribute to this literature, we organized the First Truly Global /L+/ International Summer/Winter School on Language Acquisition (/L+/). /L+/ was a free 5-day virtual school that facilitated the interchange of expertise among early career researche…
Vowel harmony preferences in infants growing up in multilingual Ghana (Africa)
Infants' preference for vowel harmony (VH, a phonotactic constraint that requires vowels in a word to be featurally similar) is thought to be language-specific: Monolingual infants learning VH languages show a listening preference for VH patterns by 6 months of age, while those learning non-VH languages do not (Gonzalez-Gomez et al., 2019; Van Kampen et al., 2008). We investigated sensitivity to advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony in Akan (Kwa, Ni…
Tongue root harmony cues for speech segmentation in multilingually raised infants learning languages with and without vowel harmony in Ghana (Africa)
This study investigated the hypothesis that 9- to 11-month-old multilingual infants learning Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony languages (such as Akan) alongside other non-vowel harmony languages in Ghana (Africa) can use ATR harmony cues for speech segmentation. Using the central fixation procedure, infants were familiarized with bisyllabic words in two passages, one with ATR cues and one without, and then tested on isolated familiarized and no…
The acquisition of plain–emphatic consonant contrasts by Arabic-speaking children
Arabic emphatic consonants are claimed to be late-acquired, likely due to their motoric complexity, involving both coronal and pharyngeal/uvular constrictions. Children’s production has largely been studied using impressionistic data, with limited acoustic analysis. This study acoustically examines the acquisition of emphatic consonants in Saudi-Hijazi Arabic-speaking children aged 3–6 years. Thirty-eight children performed a real-word repetition…
Exploring the nature of multilingual input to infants in multiple caregiver families in an African city
Examining the language input experiences of infants growing up in multilingual African environments is essential to understanding their language acquisition. We explored the language input to 3;0–12;0-month-old infants ( N = 121) in Ghana (Sub-Saharan Africa), a non-Western and less-economically rich social context and highly multilingual country. Data collection involved an interview assessment, followed by caregivers completing a 12-hour logboo…
Acoustic exaggeration of vowels in infant-directed speech
There is a long-standing debate about the extent to which vowel hyperarticulation, the production of acoustically exaggerated vowels, occurs in infant-directed speech (IDS). This exaggeration has been argued to result in clearer speech sounds that are easier for infants to process and might be positively related to infants' linguistic outcomes. However, previous findings regarding the presence of vowel hyperarticulation in IDS are seemingly incon…
Real-time spoken word recognition in deaf and hard of hearing preschoolers
This study investigates how phonological competition affects real-time spoken word recognition in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) preschoolers compared to peers with hearing in the normal range (NH). Three-to-six-year olds (27 with NH, 18 DHH, including uni- and bilateral hearing losses) were instructed to look at pictures that corresponded to words alongside a phonological competitor (e.g., / b in- p in /) vs. an unrelated distractor (e.g., / t o…
Due to increased variability, the expanded vowel and tone space in Mandarin IDS does not lead to enhanced contrasts
Expanded vowel or tone space in IDS has traditionally been interpreted as evidence of enhanced acoustic contrasts. However, emerging evidence from various languages shows that the within-category acoustic variability of vowels and tones also increases in IDS, offsetting the benefit of space expansion and leading to non-enhanced, or reduced acoustic contrasts. This study re-analysed a corpus of Mandarin IDS and ADS, showing that, relative to ADS, …
Psychology (17 obras) · Language Development and Disorders (14 obras) · Linguistics (12 obras) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (12 obras) · Computer Science (11 obras) · Vowel (7 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (6 obras) · Speech recognition (6 obras) · Language acquisition (5 obras) · Acoustics (4 obras)