Foundations of psycholinguistics Week 4 Early speech sound
development Vasiliki (Celia) Antoniou
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Today Brief review about prosody Speech perception Speech
production Assignment queries
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Review: Prosody Includes properties like rhythm/stress,
intonation Low auditory frequency information, transmitted to the
womb (5-7 month of gestation) Rhythm is used by newborns to
recognise and prefer their native language Prosody helps infants to
initialise acquisition of other linguistic areas = bootstrapping
Lexicon: Stress pattern used to segment words Syntax: Sensitivity
to pauses and other prosodic markers that signal clause
boundaries
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Prosody and speech perception From what age can English infants
use word stress to recognise words in fluent speech? 0 months5
months 7 months10 months
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Speech sound perception Voice Onset Time in stops (e.g. [b] vs.
[p]): Time between opening of closure and onset of vocal fold
vibrations bpa 0 ms VOT bpa 20 ms VOT bpa 40 ms VOT bpa 60 ms VOT
Wood 1976 ba pa
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Categorical perception Human adults are better at
discriminating pairs of sounds across category boundaries (e.g. ba1
vs. pa1) than within categories (e.g. ba1 vs. ba2)
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Other contrasts As for adults, speech rate affects
categorisation the same token can be perceived as pa in fast speech
and ba in slow speech Infants can also perceive subtle differences
between vowels (e.g. a vs. o, see Kuhls work) although they have
some difficulties with speaker variation
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Audiovisual integration Adults automatically integrate audio
and visual information McGurk effect: audio ba and visual ga lead
to perception of intermediate da in most adult subjects This effect
has also been found in infants as young as 5 months!
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What is human about this? Human speech perception abilities
present at birth are shared with other animals chinchillas and
quails can be trained to perceive sounds categorically i.e Ba vs.
Pa tamarin monkeys and rats can discriminate between rhythmically
different languages Cotton-top Tamarin Japanese quail
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Later speech perception Methods to investigate speech sound
discrimination later in life (4-18 months) Conditioned Headturn
ProcedureInfant EEG
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Engl. 6-8m Engl. 8-10 ms Engl. 10-12m Native 11-12m Werker
& Tees (1984) Changes in speech perception Percentage of
infants reaching CHT criterion
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sensitivity loss for other non-native contrasts Decrease for
r-l distinction in Japanese infants at 8m Decrease for [u]-[y] in
English infants at 6m but: stable performance for some clicks, and
for d-th distinction in French learners enhancement for difficult
native contrasts between 6 and 12 months r-l discrimination
increased in English learners na- a increased in Filipino learners
Changes in speech perception
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Birth Language preference 6 m Vowel perception 8 12 mths
Consonant perception Milestones in native speech perception 6 - 9 m
Stress perception
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Native speech production Birth 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis)
comfort 1 month 5 months Vocalisations with mouth closure Cooing,
first productions that sound like glottal or back vowel or
consonants First vocal play, imitation First vocalisations
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Speech production preparation Larynx descent and speech larynx
is higher in infants (b) than in adults (a) descent starts at 3
months speech and choking possible from 4-6 months descent finishes
at 4 years (boys: more changes during puberty)
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Native speech production Birth 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis)
comfort 1 month 5 months Vocalisations with mouth closure Cooing,
first productions that sound like glottal or back vowel or
consonants First vocal play, imitation 5-6 months Reduplicative
canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) First vocalisations Babbling
phases
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Babbling Phase I reduplicative/ canonical babbling first
speech-like productions repetitions of one syllable e.g.
[babababa]
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Native speech production Birth 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis)
comfort 1 month 5 months Vocalisations with mouth closure Cooing,
first productions that sound like glottal or back vowel or
consonants First vocal play, imitation 5-6 months Reduplicative/
canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) First vocalisations Babbling
phases 8-10 months Variegated babbling (i.e. bagota)
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Babbling Phase II variegated babbling combinations of different
syllables e.g. [badotu] sounds and intonation adapt to resemble
target language e.g. more stops in Swedish
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Native speech production Birth 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis)
comfort 1 month 5 months Vocalisations with mouth closure Cooing,
first productions that sound like glottal or back vowel or
consonants First vocal play, imitation 5-6 months Reduplicative/
canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) First vocalisations Babbling
phases 8-10 months Variegated babbling (i.e. bagota) 10-12 months:
jargon Unintelligible chains (babble stories)
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Native speech production Birth 1 month Crying, sounds of (dis)
comfort 1 month 5 months Vocalisations with mouth closure Cooing,
first productions that sound like glottal or back vowel or
consonants First vocal play, imitation 5-6 months Reduplicative/
canonical babbling (i.e. babababa) First vocalisationsBabbling
phases 8-10 months Variegated babbling (i.e. bagota) 10-12 months:
jargon Unintelligible chains (babble stories) 10 -16 months First
word production 1. Transition from babbling 2. No silent period in
between smooth transition, babbling and words co - occur
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More about early phonology Good summary on infants speech
perception -Houston (2011). Infant speech perception. In Seewald
& Tharpe: Comprehensive Handbook of Pediatric Audiology. Plural
Publishing (on Moodle) Good book on early speech and language -de
Boysson-Bardies (1999). How Language Comes to Children: From Birth
to Two Years. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
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1 st Assignment Deadline?? Friday, November 9 Try testing the
Online submission system (OCS) Check the Departmental handout for
formatting your essay and referencing rules (p. 89 96):
http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/booklets/undergraduate_
handbook/Handbook%20UG%202012-13.pdf
http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/booklets/undergraduate_
handbook/Handbook%20UG%202012-13.pdf Exemplary essays:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/current_students/Guidelines_e_d_t/
Assignment/exemp_essays.aspx
http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/current_students/Guidelines_e_d_t/
Assignment/exemp_essays.aspx Word limit? 1000 words Topic? How does
infants perception of speech sounds change during the first year of
life?
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1 st assignement Read your sources: the coursebook, the lecture
slides, the additional reading materials, the class slides and
notes Make a plan! Introduction, Main Body, Conclusion, make a note
of the key points you need to address Hints: Vowel vs consonant
contrasts and perception Infants get better at different native
contrasts Check our previous class presentations for more about
prosody and its contribution to speech perception E-mail me an
outline! Support your arguments with examples and reference to
studies where possible. Acknowledge your sources otherwise you
commit plagiarism!
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Format Fonts: 12, Times New Roman, double spaced Italicise
Journal names, article / book titles that appear in your main text
body Be consistent! Whatever way you choose to do things it should
be (p. 66) when you cite pages and not (Mehler: 66) and further
down (Mehler, 69) or (Mehler, p. 69) Follow this link for
additional help with structure, vocabulary and expressions, writing
your references, abbreviations:
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~vanton/ScanImage004.pdf
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~vanton/ScanImage004.pdf
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Common essay mistakes Include an introduction and a conclusion!
Reference all the resources you have used and remember to include
page numbers. Create a reference list at the end of your
essay...... Create paragraphs according to topic..when you change
topic, change paragraph. Pay attention to punctuation. Avoid using
long sentences. When you write something use an example to
illustrate what you say, and if needed, reference the example. Make
sure that what you put in the essay is absolutely necessary this
will reduce your word count Use theory and references, your
textbook etc. and do not simply rely on class/lecture notes
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When youve written your essay leave it for 1- 2 days and get
back to it later..youll be surprised! When you cant find a
reference here are a few tips: Search the reference list of our
text book, usually the reference will be there. If not search the
library catalogue or google the reference (authors name,
date).
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Read the essay 3 times 1 st you read in order to check the
content: Have I answered the questions? Is what I write correct
according to what Ive read? Have I left anything important out? Do
I have any examples? The 2 nd time you read in order to check the
structure: intro-conclusion, cohesion, do the ideas flow
logically?, long sentences, do I have paragraphs, a reference list,
have I used signposting?
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The 3 rd time you read in order to check the punctuation,
whether youve followed one way in referencing, line spacing, fonts
and font size, page numbering, your details, etc. Dont forget to
write your class instructors name!