12 research outputs found
Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed-speech preference
Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations.
Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) assessing the overall replicability of a single theoretically important phenomenon and (b) examining methodological, cultural, and developmental
moderators. We focus on infantsâ preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Stimuli of mothers speaking to their infants and to an adult in North American English were created using seminaturalistic
laboratory-based audio recordings. Infantsâ relative preference for IDS and ADS was assessed across 67 laboratories in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia using the three common methods for measuring infantsâ discrimination
(head-turn preference, central fixation, and eye tracking). The overall meta-analytic effect size (Cohenâs d) was 0.35, 95% confidence interval = [0.29, 0.42], which was reliably above zero but smaller than the meta-analytic mean computed from previous literature (0.67). The IDS preference was significantly stronger in older children, in those children for whom the stimuli matched their native language and dialect, and in data from labs using the head-turn preference procedure. Together, these findings replicate the IDS preference but suggest that its magnitude is modulated by development, native-language experience, and testing procedure. (This project has received funding from the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkĆodowska-Curie grant agreement No 798658.
From babble to words: Infantsâ early productions match attended objects
Slides from our presentation at the Child Language Symposium 2018, Reading, 26-27th June 201
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Listeners can use coarticulation cues to predict an upcoming novel word
During lexical access, listeners turn unfolding phonetic input into words. We tested how participants interpret words that aren't in their lexicon, either due to their coarticulation cues or because they label a novel object. In a 2-picture Visual World study, 57 adults saw a familiar object and an unfamiliar object, while hearing sentences directing their gaze to the target in 3 conditions: with a familiar word (âcribâ), a novel word (âcrigâ), or a familiar word with coarticulation cueing a novel word (âcri(g)bâ). When coarticulation cues matched the novel word (âcri(g)bâ), participants looked more at the unfamiliar object than when the cues matched the familiar word, suggesting lexical competition can include a novel word under appropriate circumstances. When hearing a novel word (e.g. âcrigâ), participants showed two patterns: Roughly half looked more at the unfamiliar object, as expected, while the rest surprisingly looked more at the familiar object. We discuss the interaction of mutual exclusivity, phonetic similarity, and coarticulation cues in driving lexical access
From babble to words: Infantsâ early productions match words and objects in their environment
Infantsâ early babbling allows them to engage in proto-conversations with caretakers, well before clearly articulated, meaningful words are part of their productive lexicon. Moreover, the well-rehearsed sounds from babble serve as a perceptual âfilterâ, drawing infantsâ attention towards words that match the sounds they can reliably produce. Using naturalistic home recordings of 44 10-11-month-olds (an age with high variability in early speech sound production), this study tests whether infantsâ early consonant productions match words and objects in their environment. We find that infantsâ babble matches the consonants produced in their caregiversâ speech. Infants with a well-established consonant repertoire also match their babble to objects in their environment. Our findings show that infantsâ early consonant productions are shaped by their input: by 10 months, the sounds of babble match what infants see and hear
More Siblings Means Lower Input Quality in Early Language Development
Presented at CogSci 2017, London, UK. 27th July 2017
From babble to words: Infantsâ early productions match words and objects in their environment
Infantsâ early babbling allows them to engage in proto-conversations with caretakers, well before clearly articulated, meaningful words are part of their productive lexicon. Moreover, the well-rehearsed sounds from babble serve as a perceptual âfilterâ, drawing infantsâ attention towards words that match the sounds they can reliably produce. Using naturalistic home recordings of 44 10-11-month-olds (an age with high variability in early speech sound production), this study tests whether infantsâ early consonant productions match words and objects in their environment. We find that infantsâ babble matches the consonants produced in their caregiversâ speech. Infants with a well-established consonant repertoire also match their babble to objects in their environment. Our findings show that infantsâ early consonant productions are shaped by their input: by 10 months, the sounds of babble match what infants see and hear
Online Developmental Science to Foster Innovation, Access, and Impact
© 2020 The Authors We propose that developmental cognitive science should invest in an online CRADLE, a Collaboration for Reproducible and Distributed Large-Scale Experiments that crowdsources data from families participating on the internet. Here, we discuss how the field can work together to further expand and unify current prototypes for the benefit of researchers, science, and society