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Infant-directed speech facilitates lexical learning in adults hearing Chinese: Implications for language acquisition
Abstract
Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of infant-directed (ID) speech on adults' ability to learn an individual target word in sentences in an unfamiliar, non-Western language (Chinese). English-speaking adults heard pairs of sentences read by a female, native Chinese speaker in either ID or adult-directed (AD) speech. The pairs of sentences described slides of 10 common objects. The Chinese name for the object (the target word) was placed in an utterance-final position in experiment 1 (n = 61) and in a medial position in experiment 2 (n = 79). At test, each Chinese target word was presented in isolation in AD speech in a recognition task. Only subjects who heard ID speech with the target word in utterance-final position demonstrated learning of the target words. The results support assertions that ID speech, which tends to put target words in sentence-final position, may assist infants in segmenting and remembering portions of the linguistic stream. In experiment 3 (n = 23), subjects judged whether each of the ID and AD speech samples prepared for experiments 1 and 2 were directed to an adult or to an infant. Judgements were above chance for two types of sentence: ID speech with the target word in the final position and AD speech with the target word in a medial position. In addition to indirectly confirming the results of experiments 1 and 2, these findings suggest that at least some of the prosodic features which comprise ID speech in Chinese and English must overlap.
... In contrast, the overall "disadvantage" for the homogenous sequential bilinguals is explained by the activation of an L1 Mandarin linguistic feature, namely, contrastive lexical tones, due to the pitch variations in the stimuli presented, since no negative evidence against the use of tonal contrasts was provided in the CSWL task . This possibility may have been enhanced by the words in the study being produced in infant-directed speech (IDS) because its properties can facilitate the learning of phonetic contrasts in adults and children Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995;Graf Estes & Hurley, 2013). 11 However, since IDS has more variable pitch than adult-directed speech across languages (Igarashi et al., 2013), the English words produced in IDS likely sounded as though they had different lexical tones to L1 Mandarin ears, challenging their word-referent mappings. ...
In this chapter, we thoroughly describe the L2LP model, its five ingredients to explain speech development from first contact with a language or dialect (initial state) to proficiency comparable to a native speaker of the language or dialect (ultimate attainment), and its empirical, computational, and statistical method. We present recent studies comparing different types of bilinguals (simultaneous and sequential) and explaining their differential levels of ultimate attainment in different learning scenarios. We also show that although the model has the word “perception” in its name, it was designed to also explain phonological development in general, including lexical development, speech production, and orthographic effects. The chapter demonstrates that the L2LP model can be regarded as a comprehensive theoretical, computational, and probabilistic model or framework for explaining how we learn the phonetics and phonology of multiple languages (sequentially or simultaneously) with variable levels of language input throughout the life span.
... Infant-directed speech is so natural, your foreign language teacher may start speaking this way to you. Though it may seem silly to treat you like a baby, it actually helps adults acquire a new language in much the same way it helps babies (Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995). In addition to cross-cultural differences, we see individual differences within language communities; the infants of mothers who speak especially clearly are better at learning the basic sounds of their language (Liu et al., 2003). ...
The current chapter provides a broad introduction to some of the many ways developmental psychology explores inside the minds of infancy. We will examine how the science of Developmental Psychology informs us about what is going on inside the minds of infants. We will examine thoughts and feelings from birth – and occasionally beforehand – through the stage of infancy (from zero to about two years of age), and into toddlerhood, the third year of life. We begin by examining the basic cognitive processes of attention, memory, and learning. Through these basic processes we will see some of the techniques developmental psychologists have devised for studying infants’ thinking. Next, we consider infants’ experience of sensations and their perceptions. Third, we explore infants’ expression of emotion, understanding the emotions of others, and the beginnings of their own self-concepts. Finally, we examine how infants understand abstractions like language and mathematics.
... In contrast, the overall "disadvantage" for the homogenous sequential bilinguals is explained by the activation of an L1 Mandarin linguistic feature, namely contrastive lexical tones, due to the pitch variations in the stimuli presented, since no negative evidence against the use of tonal contrasts was provided in the CSWL task . This possibility may have been enhanced by the words in the study being produced in infant-directed speech (IDS) because its properties can facilitate the learning of phonetic contrasts in adults and children (Graf Estes & Hurley, 2013;Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995;. 12 However, since IDS has more variable pitch than adult-directed speech across languages (Igarashi et al., 2013), the English words produced in IDS likely sounded as though they had different lexical tones to L1 Mandarin ears, challenging their word-referent mappings. ...
In this chapter, we thoroughly describe the L2LP model, its five ingredients to explain speech development from first contact with a language or dialect (initial state) to proficiency comparable to a native speaker of the language or dialect (ultimate attainment), and its empirical, computational, and statistical method. We present recent studies comparing different types of bilinguals (simultaneous and sequential) and explaining their differential levels of ultimate attainment in different learning scenarios. We also show that although the model has the word “perception” in its name, it was designed to also explain phonological development in general, including lexical development, speech production, and orthographic effects. The studies reviewed in the chapter include new methods for examining lexical development and speech production, via implicit word learning and corpus-based analyses respectively, as well as a novel suprasegmental example of the L2LP SUBSET problem, which was conceptualized as the reverse of the commonly NEW scenario where L2 learners are phased with target contrasts that do not exist in their L1. We also review a recent study on the effect of bidialectalism on L2 acquisition, showing that the L2LP model’s explanations not only apply to speakers of multiple languages but also of multiple dialects. Finally, we present other topics and future directions, including phonetic training, going beyond segmental phonology, and the formalisation of orthographic effects in phonological development. All in all, the chapter demonstrates that the L2LP model can be regarded as a comprehensive theoretical, computational, and probabilistic model or framework for explaining how we learn the phonetics and phonology of multiple languages (sequentially or simultaneously) with variable levels of language input throughout the life span.
... Moreover, they facilitate the parsing of events and an analysis of continuous actions, i.e., they help segment incoming stimuli into relevant units, both for speech (Kemler Nelson et al., 1989;Lee et al., 2008;Papoušek et al., 1987;Thiessen et al., 2005) and actions (Brand et al., 2002;Levine et al., 2019). Consequently, they facilitate the acquisition of language (Floccia et al., 2016;Gervain et al., 2008;Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995;Graf Estes & Hurley, 2013;Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1987), promote imitation (Elsner, 2007;Williamson & Brand, 2014), and stimulate independent research (Koterba & Iverson, 2009). ...
Infant-directed speech (IDS) and infant-directed actions (IDA) represent specific behavioural modifications of adults when they communicate with infants and young children. Infant-directed modifications (IDMs) have specific behavioural representations marked by high positive affection, greater expressiveness, simplification, and increased repetition. Both IDS and IDA appear as part of the same larger behavioural system of IDMs. However, so far, studies have analysed the features and functions of these behaviours separately. Compared to adult-directed speech, IDS is characterised by longer pauses, a slower tempo, more prosodic repetition, higher fundamental frequency, longer vowels, repetitive intonation structures, and greater melodiousness. In IDA, compared to adult-directed actions, the amplitude of movements, simplification, and number of repetitions tend to increase as the distance between communication partners decrease. In this review, we draw a parallel between IDS and IDA to show that adults change both their speech and actions in similar ways and that both actions and speech change depending on the infant’s age and/or developmental stage. We discuss possible (biological) mechanisms that elicit the use of IDS and IDA and argue that this specific type of adult behaviour has a unique impact on how infants perceive and process information. Insights on biological, behavioural, and functional aspects of IDMs could provide a new perspective on the importance of early interactions and knowledge acquisition in both typically developing children and those with developmental disorders.
... Few experiments have tested the efficacy of clear speech registers for word learning in adults. For instance 22,23 , found that Chinese Infant Directed Speech (IDS) helps non-native adult participants to learn words. IDS shares various acoustic features (including vowel hyperarticulation 8 ) and proposed didactic function with NNDS, although these registers are intended for different addressees. ...
This study assessed whether Non-native Directed Speech (NNDS) facilitates second language (L2) learning, specifically L2 word learning and production. Spanish participants (N = 50) learned novel English words, presented either in NNDS or Native-Directed Speech (NDS), in two tasks: Recognition and Production. Recognition involved matching novel objects to their labels produced in NNDS or NDS. Production required participants to pronounce these objects’ labels. The novel words contained English vowel contrasts, which approximated Spanish vowel categories more (/i-ɪ/) or less (/ʌ-æ/). Participants in the NNDS group exhibited faster recognition of novel words, improved learning, and produced the /i-ɪ/ contrast with greater distinctiveness in comparison to the NDS group. Participants’ ability to discriminate the target vowel contrasts was also assessed before and after the tasks, with no improvement detected in the two groups. These findings support the didactic assumption of NNDS, indicating the relevance of the phonetic adaptations in this register for successful L2 acquisition.
... Part of the preference for IDS could be because infants tend to prefer affiliative behaviors, and IDS may be associated with that (Geraci et al., 2022). The use of IDS can also assist in the segmentation of words from fluent speech (Golinkoff and Alioto, 1995;Kuhl, 2004;Thiessen et al., 2005). Facilitating word segmentation is especially important during the first year of life, as detecting regularities from the linguistic environment is a first step in understanding and ultimately producing meaningful units in their native language (Saffran, 2001). ...
Introduction
Infant-directed speech (IDS) refers to how people in many societies talk with young children. Compared to speech directed to an adult (ADS), IDS includes a slower rate, fewer words per utterance, higher-than-average pitch, and elongated vowels. Although many benefits are associated with using IDS, there is little information on what parents think about IDS. The current study asked: (1) How do mothers conceptualize IDS; (2) Is there an alignment between mothers' IDS beliefs and their speech register when teaching a new word to their child; and (3) How do mothers' IDS beliefs associate with children's expressive language and performance on a word learning task?
Methods
Fifty-three mothers and their 15- to 21-month-old monolingual English-reared infants ( M age = 17.92, SD = 1.99, 23 males) participated. Mothers were asked to teach their child a novel word and to complete the Parent Language Belief Questionnaire (PLBQ). Mothers' IDS was recorded as they taught their child a novel word and was compared to their ADS from interacting with the experimenter.
Results
Findings revealed that mothers had mixed beliefs about their use of IDS. Yet, most mothers used IDS as they taught their child a novel word. Lastly, mothers' IDS beliefs did not predict children's language skills or word learning at test.
Discussion
The current study is the first to explore whether mothers' beliefs about their use of infant-directed speech align with their actual use of IDS. As the positive benefits between IDS and children's language development have been documented, identifying the barriers surrounding why parents may not use IDS with their children is essential.
... Few experiments have tested the e cacy of clear speech registers for word learning in adults. For instance, (Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995;Ma et al., 2020) found that Chinese Infant Directed Speech (IDS) helps non-native adult participants to learn words. IDS shares various acoustic features (including vowel hyperarticulation, Uther et al., 2007) and proposed didactic function with NNDS, although these registers are intended for different addressees. ...
This study assessed whether Non-native Directed Speech (NNDS) facilitates second language (L2) learning, specifically L2 word learning and production. Spanish participants (N=50) learned novel English words, presented either in NNDS or Native-Directed Speech (NDS), in two tasks: Recognition and Production. Recognition involved matching novel objects to their labels produced in NNDS or NDS. Production required participants to pronounce these objects’ labels. The novel words contained English vowel contrasts, which approximated Spanish vowel categories more (/ɪ-i/) or less (/æ-ɛ/). Participants assigned to the NNDS group recognized novel words faster and learned and pronounced the /ɪ-i/ contrast words better compared to participants in the NDS group. Participants’ ability to discriminate the target vowel contrasts was also assessed before and after the tasks, with no improvement detected in the two groups. These findings support the didactic assumption of NNDS, indicating the relevance of the phonetic adaptations in this register for successful L2 acquisition.
... Counter to this prediction based on L1-to-L2 transfer (Hernandez et al., 2005), participants exhibited higher accuracy on case trials at posttest and expressed greater awareness of case marking on the questionnaire. These results may be attributable to a serial position (Murdock, 1962) or utterance-final effect (Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995), whereby learners have better recall of information appearing at the end of a series than in the middle. In line with Slobin's (1973) suggestion that people learn to pay attention to the ends of words and with demonstrations of a suffixation preference (Hupp et al., 2009;Martin & Culbertson, 2020), participants were more likely to notice the case marker at the end of the Turkish noun than the plural marker immediately preceding it. ...
This study examined putative benefits of testing and production for learning new languages. Undergraduates ( N = 156) were exposed to Turkish spoken dialogues under varying learning conditions (retrieval practice, comprehension, verbal repetition) in a computer‐assisted language learning session. Participants completed pre‐ and posttests of number‐ and case‐marking comprehension, a vocabulary test, and an explicit awareness questionnaire. Controlling for nonverbal ability and pretest scores, the retrieval‐practice group performed highest overall. For number/case marking, the comprehension and retrieval‐practice groups outperformed the verbal‐repetition group, suggesting benefits of either recognition‐ or recall‐based testing. For vocabulary, the verbal‐repetition and retrieval‐practice groups outperformed the comprehension group, indicating benefits of overt production. Case marking was easier to learn than number marking, suggesting advantages for learning word‐final inflections. Explicit awareness correlated with comprehension accuracy, yet some participants demonstrated above‐chance comprehension without showing awareness. Findings indicate the value of incorporating both practice tests and overt production in language pedagogy.
... Such speech is characterized by a variety of intonational and prosodic characteristics, including heightened pitch, broader pitch range, lengthened vowels, longer pauses, shorter utterances, and exaggerated intonation contours (e.g., Fernald et al., 1989;Papoušek, Papoušek, & Symmes, 1991;Albin & Echols, 1996;Ratner, 1986;Stern, Spieker, & MacKain, 1982, see Golinkoff, Can, Soderstrom, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2015 for review). These features have the effect of holding infants' attention (ManyBabies Consortium, 2020), highlighting boundaries between word units (Nelson, Hirsh-Pasek, Jusczyk, & Cassidy, 1989;Golinkoff & Alioto, 1995), and facilitating language acquisition (see Spinelli, Fasolo, & Mesman, 2017 for review). Such infant-directed speech is used by not only mothers but also most adults (and even older children) in many cultures (Barton & Tomasello, 1994;Fernald et al., 1989;Kitamura, Thanavishuth, Burnham, & Luksaneeyanawin, 2001;Papoušek et al., 1991). ...
In many cultures, adults use simple, slow, and dynamic speech when talking to infants ("parentese," or infant-directed speech) and make expansive, repetitive movements when demonstrating object properties to infants ("motionese," or infant-directed actions). These modifications enhance infants' attention to and learning about language and goal-directed actions. Adults' interactions with infants are also full of emotions—do adults also modify their emotional expressions when interacting with in-fants? Here we showed parents of infants (aged 7 to 14 months; N = 25) emotion-evoking pictures including colorful bubbles, adorable stuffed animals, yummy snacks, broken toys, dangerous fire, and rotten fruits. We asked parents to describe their feelings about these pictures either to their infant or to an adult partner (i.e., an experimenter). While the parents' use of emotion words did not differ between conditions, their emotional expressions did: Their infant-directed emotional expressions were more positive when they discussed positive pictures and more negative when they discussed negative pictures compared to their adult-directed emotional expressions. These findings suggest that besides "parentese" and "motionese," there is also a unique form of emotional communication in parent-child interaction—"emotionese."
When infants hear sentences containing unfamiliar words, are some language‐world links (such as noun–object) more readily formed than others (verb–predicate)? We examined English learning 14–15‐month‐olds’ capacity for linking referents in scenes with bisyllabic nonce utterances. Each of the two syllables referred either to the object's identity, or the object's motion. Infants heard the syllables in either a Verb–Subject (VS) or Subject–Verb (SV) order. Learning was tested using preferential looking. The results showed that infants learned the nouns and verbs equally well. In addition, in both the VS‐ and SV‐consistent conditions, infants learned the meaning of the utterance‐final syllable, but not the utterance‐initial one. A follow‐up experiment that manipulated the prosodic cues of the test phrases confirmed that infants had decomposed the bisyllabic phrases into two distinct word‐units. Thus, any biases potentially favoring noun or verb learning played a smaller role than utterance position did when noun and verb learning were equally supported by context.
The prosodic features of maternal speech addressed to 2-month-old infants were measured quantitatively in a tonal language, Mandarin Chinese, to determine whether the features are similar to those observed in nontonal languages such as English and German. Speech samples were recorded when 8 Mandarin-speaking mothers addressed an adult and their own infants. Eight prosodic features were measured by computer: fundamental frequency (pitch), frequency range per sample, frequency range per phrase, phrase duration, pause duration, number of phrases per sample, number of syllables per phrase, and the proportion of phrase time as opposed to pause time per sample. Results showed that fundamental frequency was significantly higher and exhibited a larger range over the entire sample as well as a larger range per phrase in infant-directed as opposed to adult-directed speech. Durational analyses indicated significantly shorter utterances and longer pauses in infant-directed speech. Significantly fewer phrases per sample, fewer syllables per phrase, and less phrase-time per sample occurred in infant-directed speech. This pattern of results for Mandarin motherese is similar to that reported in other languages and suggests that motherese may exhibit universal prosodic features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined patterns of preboundary lengthening in mother–child speech by analyzing the speech of 9 women engaged in recorded play sessions with their 9–13 mo old daughters over a 6-mo period. It was found that maternal speech to children on the verge of expressive language ability was characterized by a statistically significant increase in the degree of preboundary lengthening normally expected in conversational speech. Observable but nonsignificant preboundary lengthening was observed in maternal speech to children using 1-word utterances and to children using combinatorial language. It is suggested that maternal speech exaggerates a salient cue to the identification of major syntactic units in conversational speech. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies investigated adults' use of prosodic emphasis to mark focused words in speech to infants and adults. In Exp 1, 18 mothers told a story to a 14-mo-old infant and to an adult, using a picture book in which 6 target items were the focus of attention. Prosodic emphasis was measured both acoustically and subjectively. In speech to infants, mothers consistently positioned focused words on exaggerated pitch peaks in utterance-final position, whereas in speech to adults prosodic emphasis was more variable. In Exp 2, 12 women taught another adult an assembly procedure involving familiar and novel terminology. In both studies, stressed words in adult-directed speech rarely coincided with pitch peaks. However, in infant-directed speech, mothers regularly used pitch prominence to convey primary stress. The use of exaggerated pitch peaks at the ends of utterances to mark focused words may facilitate speech processing for the infant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Mothers were recorded as they informally sang a song of their choice, once to their infant and once in the infant's absence. Paired excerpts from different mothers were then presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed song in each pair. In Experiment 1, with singers and listeners of North American origin, infant-directed excerpts were identified with a high level of accuracy. Mothers in Experiment 2, all of Indian descent, sang Hindi songs in both contexts. Listeners of Indian and North American origin identified the infant-directed excerpts significantly better than chance, with women outperforming men and native Hindi speakers outperforming native English speakers. These findings document a distinctive style of singing to infants, some aspects of which are recognizable across cultures and musical systems. Cross-cultural differences in singing style and the relations between infantdirected song and speech are discussed.
In this report we ask how mother-infant interaction affects the rate of early language acquisition. Mothers and 15-month-old infants were videotaped playing at home. Coders described (a) infants' attention to people and/or objects, (b) mothers' use of literal and conventional acts to direct infants' attention and (c) functions of mothers' utterances. Taken together, these aspects of mother-infant play predicted 40% of the variance in infants' vocabulary size at 18 months. Significant unique contributions to this prediction were made by mothers' conven tional object-marking and metalingual use of language. The more mothers highlighted both (a) shared objects using conventional means, and (b) the linguistic code, the greater the variety of words their infants used at 18 months of age.
Segmentation of continuous speech into its component words is a nontrivial task for listeners. Previous work has suggested that listeners develop heuristic segmentation procedures based on experience with the structure of their language; for English, the heuristic is that strong syllables (containing full vowels) are most likely to be the initial syllables of lexical words, whereas weak syllables (containing central, or reduced, vowels) are nonword-initial, or, if word-initial, are grammatical words. This hypothesis is here tested against natural and laboratory-induced missegmentations of continuous speech. Precisely the expected pattern is found: listeners erroneously insert boundaries before strong syllables but delete them before weak syllables; boundaries inserted before strong syllables produce lexical words, while boundaries inserted before weak syllables produce grammatical words.
In three experiments, subjects heard alternate versions of naturally spoken sentences that allowed two prosodic realizations (They are FRYING chickens vs They are frying CHICKENS). In Experiment 1, a paraphrase choice task showed that interpretations reliably depended on the prosody used. In Experiment 2, presented sentences were tested for recognition against unfamiliar sentences. Recognition ratings were higher if the sentences were spoken with the same prosody at presentation and test than if two different prosodic versions were presented on these two occasions. This matching effect was not larger for sentences whose prosodies biased listeners toward different syntactic analyses than for sentences whose prosodies effected changes in focus. Experiment 3 showed this integration of prosody and text for nonsense sentences.
It has been frequently claimed that the meaning of syntactically ambiguous sentences (such as “Visiting relatives can be a nuisance”) can be made explicit by phonetic means such as stress and intonation. This study describes some ways in which such disambiguation can be accomplished. Fifteen ambiguous sentences were first read by four speakers. The ambiguities were then pointed out, and each speaker stated which meaning he had intended to produce. Each sentence was then produced again twice, the speaker making a conscious effort to differentiate between the two potential meanings. Thirty listeners tried to identify the meaning which the speakers had intended. In 10 out of 15 cases, listeners performed at better than chance level, which implies that the intention of the speakers was successfully communicated to the listeners. The suprasegmentalpatterns employed by the speakers in successful disambiguation were established by acoustic analysis. While stress and intonation play a part, timing seems to have been the principal means by which the two meanings of the sentence were differentiated.
Adult subjects attempted to identify structures (words and constituents) in sentences of a language they did not know. They heard each sentence twice-once with a pause interrupting a structural component and once with a pause separating different structural components. They were asked to choose the version that sounded more natural. An experimental group of subjects who had been previously exposed to a spoken passage in the same language as the test sentences was more successful in identifying structures of the sentences than was the control group with previous exposure to another language. This result was interpreted as demonstrating that language structure may be partially acquired during a brief exposure without reliance on meaning. It was also noted that the experimental group identified constituents more accurately than words. This result suggested that constituents, more than words, function as acquisitional units of language.
The subjects' ability to segment foreign speech was examined. Naturalness judgments regarding three syntactically defined pauses [between constituents (noun and verb phrases), words, or syllables] were obtained using a paired-presentation, forced-choice paradigm. It was hypothesized that segmentation skill developed through exposure to lexical and syntactic markers. Teh existence and effect of such markers was investigated by assigning subjects to various exposure conditions.
Results indicated that lexical and syntactic markers exist and can be utilized by subjects in segmenting speech. Contrary to previous research, however, exposure did not facilitate performance. All groups discriminated constituents from either words or syllables, and words from syllables. Results were interpreted as reflecting the interdependence of syntax and suprasegmental phonology. Results challenged the credibility of traditional associationist accounts of language acquisition and speech perception. Results were discussed in the context of Martin's theory of the rhythmic structure of speech.