Young Infants' Word Comprehension Given An Unfamiliar Talker or Altered Pronunciations.

ABSTRACT: To understand spoken words, listeners must appropriately interpret co-occurring talker characteristics and speech sound content. This ability was tested in 6- to 14-months-olds by measuring their looking to named food and body part images. In the new talker condition (n = 90), pictures were named by an unfamiliar voice; in the mispronunciation condition (n = 98), infants' mothers "mispronounced" the words (e.g., nazz for nose). Six- to 7-month-olds fixated target images above chance across conditions, understanding novel talkers, and mothers' phonologically deviant speech equally. Eleven- to 14-months-olds also understood new talkers, but performed poorly with mispronounced speech, indicating sensitivity to phonological deviation. Between these ages, performance was mixed. These findings h

SUBMITTER: Bergelson E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5741549 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature