Constraints on infant speech acquisition : a cross-language perspective

textThis study explored the relative contributions of child-internal production factors and perceptual influences from the ambient language on early speech-+ acquisition. Research has suggested that both articulatory complexity and perceptual distinctiveness impact a language's phonetic inventory; however, the ways these two properties interact during speech acquisition is not well understood. Quichua, spoken in Highland Ecuador, differs from English in many phonological properties. Babbling and early words of seven Quichua-learning infants between 9 and 16 months at the onset were followed longitudinally for 6 months. They were compared to the babbling and early words of Englishlearning infants and to Quichua and English adult speech samples. Production factors predominated in the babbling and early words of the Quichua infants. The infants' productions in the two language environments were more similar than the Quichua infants' speech productions were to the Quichua adult language models. Infants from both language environments primarily produced coronal stops and nasals, lower left quadrant vowels, simple consonantvowel syllables, one-syllable utterances, as well as similar predicted intrasyllabic consonant-vowel co-occurrence and intersyllabic consonant-consonant and vowel-vowel variegation patterns. Evidence of ambient language influences was apparent in consonant and vowel inventories and utterance length in the older infants. Dorsals, fricatives, and affricates occurred more frequently, and labials and liquids occurred less frequently in Quichua than English-learning infants. Quichua infants also produced more low vowels in late babbling and more two- and three-or-more syllable words. These findings all mirror Quichua properties. In addition, the Quichua infants' lower level of word use and shorter babbling length appear to reflect cultural influences. These findings indicate that child-internal production factors, ambient language influences and cultural norms must all be considered in an attempt to understand early speech acquisition. Many of the production patterns observed in the infants' utterances also occurred in the adult ambient language, although not to the same extent as in the infants. Based on the parallel findings in infants and adults, it appears that production-based factors are a principle underlying factor in babbling and first words, and are so basic to the production mechanism that they are retained to a lesser extent in modern languages.Communication Sciences and Disorder

The effect of breakfast protein source on postprandial hunger and glucose response in normal weight and overweight young women

Breakfast consumption has been linked to health benefits such as improved weight regulation and glucose control. Studies have shown higher protein breakfasts lead to a greater reduction in hunger compared to breakfasts higher in carbohydrates. However, few studies have examined the impact of higher protein breakfasts from differing protein sources. The objective of this study was to determine if protein quality (animal (AP) versus plant (PP) protein) influences postprandial appetite, food cravings, food intake and glucose response in participants consuming a high protein breakfast (~30% energy from protein). We hypothesized that AP would be more satiating than PP. Normal weight (NW; n = 12) and overweight women (OW; n = 8) ages 18-36 were recruited to participate. All participants completed two visits in a randomized, cross-over design with one week between visits. Blood glucose and appetite were assessed at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 120 min postprandial. Participants kept a 24-h dietary record for the duration of each test day. Participants preferred the appearance of the AP meal compared to the PP (P \u3c 0.05). No difference was found between NW and OW participants or breakfasts for postprandial appetite responses. The AP had a significantly lower (P \u3c 0.05) glucose response at 30 min compared with PP (-11.6%; 127 + 4 versus 112 + 4 mg/dL) and a slower return to baseline. There was no significant difference in daily energy intake between breakfasts. These data suggest protein source influences postprandial glucose response without significantly impacting appetite response and food intake in regular breakfast consumers

Investigating Metrical Context Effects on Anticipatory Coarticulation in Connected Speech Development

If rhythm acquisition is influenced by the development of articulatory timing, then metrical structure might be expected to condition this timing. This study tested this hypothesis by investigating anticipatory effects of an upcoming noun on the production of a preceding determiner, under the assumption that anticipatory coarticulation indexes chunking. Simple S-V-O sentences were elicited from 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults. The V was either monosyllabic packed or disyllabic patted. The O was a determiner phrase where nouns varied either in onset place-of-articulation (POA; tack vs. cat) or in their rhymes (tack vs. toot). Acoustic analyses of determiner schwa F1 and F2 showed no effect of verb on schwa coarticulation. Given other results, including an interaction between age group and POA, the findings suggest that the acquisition of articulatory timing is independent of metrical structure, even if this timing is related to speech rhythm acquisition

Parameters driving effectiveness of automated essay scoring with LSA

Automated essay scoring with latent semantic analysis (LSA) has recently been subject to increasing interest. Although previous authors have achieved grade ranges similar to those awarded by humans, it is still not clear which and how parameters improve or decrease the effectiveness of LSA. This pa-per presents an analysis of the effects of these parameters, such as text pre-processing, weighting, singular value dimensionality and type of similarity measure, and benchmarks this effectiveness by comparing machine-assigned with human-assigned scores in a real-world case. We show that each of the identified factors significantly influences the quality of automated essay scoring and that the factors are not independent of each other

Ethics, Equity, and English-Language Learners: A Decision-Making Framework

This articles addresses challenges related to clinical decision-making in intervention with English-language learners and their families

Typische Konstellationen der Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeitnehmer. Ergebnisse einer Cluster-Analyse von Betrieben des verarbeitenden Gewerbes

"Im folgenden wird der Versuch gemacht - auf der Basis der Angaben von 1969 Betrieben des verarbeitenden Gewerbes aus dem Jahre 1976 - Arbeitsplätze nach Qualifikationsanforderungen und nach Attraktivität der Arbeitsbedingungen zu strukturieren und zu ermitteln, wo ausländische Arbeitnehmer typischerweise eingesetzt werden. Nach Darstellung der relevanten Hypothesen und des Designs des verwendeten Cluster-Verfahrens (Verwendung eines eigenkonstruierten Ähnlichkeitsindex) werden die Ergebnisse ausführlich geschildert: Es zeigt sich, daß ausländische Arbeitnehmer insbesondere dort eingesetzt werden, wo Großserienfertigung vorherrscht bzw. wo die Fluktuation hoch ist und/oder die Arbeitsbedingungen charakterisiert sind durch viel Schicht-, Akkord- und Prämienlohnarbeit. Bei der Clusterung nach Variablen der Qualifikationsstruktur lassen sich insgesamt 13 Betriebstypen ermitteln, bei der Clusterung nach Variablen der Arbeitsbedingungen insgesamt 11. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Betriebstypisierungen zeigt, daß insbesondere Art der eingesetzten Fertigungsverfahren, Qaulifikationsstruktur, Geschlechter-Split und Nationalität der gewerblich Beschäftigten sowie die Arbeitsbedingungen miteinander in Beziehung stehen. Differenziert man die Fertigungsverfahren nach ihrer Ausbringungsmenge, so läßt sich vereinfachend über die Typen hinweg folgender Bezug herstellen: Einzel-, Klein- und Mittlere Serienfertigung: Gelernte und deutsche Frauen Mittlere und Großserienfertigung: ausländische Frauen Großserien-, Massen- und kontinuierliche Prozeßfertigung: un-, angelernte deutsche und ausländische Männer Massenfertigung durch Halbautomaten (Typ mit viel Frauen): Gelernte und deutsche Frauen."ausländische Arbeitnehmer, verarbeitendes Gewerbe, Qualifikationsanforderungen, Arbeitsbedingungen

FRI -- Feature Relevance Intervals for Interpretable and Interactive Data Exploration

Most existing feature selection methods are insufficient for analytic purposes as soon as high dimensional data or redundant sensor signals are dealt with since features can be selected due to spurious effects or correlations rather than causal effects. To support the finding of causal features in biomedical experiments, we hereby present FRI, an open source Python library that can be used to identify all-relevant variables in linear classification and (ordinal) regression problems. Using the recently proposed feature relevance method, FRI is able to provide the base for further general experimentation or in specific can facilitate the search for alternative biomarkers. It can be used in an interactive context, by providing model manipulation and visualization methods, or in a batch process as a filter method.Comment: Addition of IEEE copyright notice. Accepted for CIBCB 2019 (https://cibcb2019.icas.xyz/

Effects on L1 During Early Acquisition of L2: Speech Changes in Spanish at First English Contact

Spanish phonological development was examined in six sequential bilingual children at the point of contact with English and eight months later. We explored effects of the English vowel and consonant inventory on Spanish. Children showed a significant increase in consonant cluster accuracy and in vowel errors. These emerging sequential bilingual children showed effects of English on their first language, Spanish. Cross-linguistic transfer did not affect all properties of the phonology equally. Negative transfer may occur in specific areas where the second language is more complex, requiring reorganization of the existing system, as in the transition from the Spanish five-vowel to the English eleven-vowel system

The hidden persuaders break into the tired brain

There is a long-lasting debate on whether subliminal advertising actually works. In this context there are some studies suggesting that subjects’ motivation is a crucial point. Karremans et al. [Karremans, J. C., Stroebe, W., & Claus, J. (2006). Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 792–798] showed that subjects were influenced in their intention to drink a specific brand of soft drink by a subliminally presented brand prime, but only if they were thirsty. In the present study, we adapted their paradigm to the concept of ‘concentration’ and embedded the subliminal presentation of a brand logo into a computer game. Actual subsequent consumption of dextrose pills (of the presented or a not presented brand) was measured dependent on the level of participants’ tiredness and the subliminally presented logo. We found the same pattern as Karremans et al. (2006): only tired participants consumed more of the subliminally presented than the not presented brand. Therefore, the findings confirm that subjects are influenced by subliminally presented stimuli if these stimuli are need-related and if subjects are in the matching motivational state