Consonant, vowel, and tone cues in early wordform recognition

Evidence from Cantonese-learning infants

Bibliographic Data

ID21307128
AuthorsChunzi Li (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Zhenting Liu (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Thierry Nazzi (0000-0002-4378-3661, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Regine Lai (0000-0003-3764-5892, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author), Regine Yee King Lai
Year2026
Volume275
Pages106624
Publication date2026-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCognition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-0277 • E-ISSN: 1873-7838
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106624
PMID42288068
OpenAlexW7164743313
LanguageEN
References cited40

Phonological biases in word recognition vary across languages, however, most work has examined consonant and vowel information, with little attention to how lexical tones contribute to word recognition in tone-language learners. The present study asked how consonants, vowels, and tones are weighted using a familiar-wordform recognition task in 11-month-old Cantonese-learning infants. In a baseline experiment (Experiment 1), infants listened longer to familiar wordforms than to pseudowords, confirming successful recognition of familiar wordforms. In Experiment 2, infants were tested on consonant and vowel mispronunciations of the same familiar words. Infants listened longer to vowel than to consonant mispronunciations, indicating that vowel changes were more disruptive to recognition than consonant changes, a V-bias. In Experiment 3, we compared vowel and tone mispronunciations and found no difference in infants' listening behaviour, suggesting comparable weighting of vowel and tone information at this age. These findings provide the earliest developmental evidence of phonological asymmetries in a tone language: vowels are more critical than consonants for recognizing familiar wordforms by 11 months, whereas vowels and tones appear to contribute similarly. Considered together with prior findings that older Cantonese-learning children rely less on tone contrasts during word learning, the present results suggest that the relative weighting of phonological cues reorganizes over development in tone-language learners

Auditory perception · Cognition · Perception · Pure tone · Tone (literature) · Language Development and Disorders · Neuroscience and Music Perception · Phonetics and Phonology Research

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access