Little Words, Big Impact: Determiners Begin to Bootstrap Reference by 12 Months
Little Words, Big Impact: Determiners Begin to Bootstrap Reference by 12 Months
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DOI：
10.1080/15475441.2017.1283229
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发表时间：
2017-01-01
影响因子：
1.5
通讯作者：
Parmet, Yisrael
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kedar, Yarden;Casasola, Marianella;Parmet, Yisrael
我们对 12 个月和 18 个月大的英语学习婴儿进行了一项优先任务的测试，该任务将使用限定词“the”的语法正确的句子与“the”被另一个英语功能词、无意义词或省略的三个不合语法的情况进行对比。我们的设计涉及对测试刺激中功能词的语音构成和协同发音效果的严格控制，这在以前的研究中是不存在的。结果显示功能词（FW）的整体效果显着，两个年龄组之间没有显着的交互作用。总体而言，婴儿能够更快地定位目标图像，并且在遵循语法句子后能够更正确地第一眼看到目标。年龄组内的测试显示 FW 对 18 个月大的孩子的潜伏期和第一眼正确率有显着影响，记录了语言敏感性，这种敏感性在我们的新声学变量上仍然存在。在 12 个月大的孩子中，FW 对初视有显着影响，但 FW 对潜伏期没有显着影响。然而，成对比较显示，即使在这个年龄，语法和非语法 FW 的潜伏期也存在显着差异。这些发现表明，在孩子的第一个单词周围的早期发展阶段，在句子处理及其在计算名词参考中的使用中已经存在对限定词的敏感性的某种原型形式。我们推测 12 至 18 个月期间发育变化的可能解释。
We tested 12-and 18-month-old English-learning infants on a preferential-looking task which contrasted grammatically correct sentences using the determiner "the" vs. three ungrammatical conditions in which "the" was substituted by another English function word, a nonsense word, or omitted. Our design involved strict controls on phonetic composition of function words and co-articulation effects in the stimuli tested, which were absent in previous studies. The results show an overall significant effect of Function Word (FW), with no significant interaction effects between the two age groups. Overall, infants oriented faster to a target image and had more correct first looks at target following grammatical sentences. Tests within age groups show a significant effect of FW in 18-month-olds for both latency and correct first look, documenting a linguistic sensitivity, which persists over our new acoustic variables. In the 12-month-olds there was a significant effect of FW on first look, although no significant effect of FW for latency appeared. However, pairwise comparisons showed a significant difference between grammatical and ungrammatical FWs in latency even at this age. These findings suggest that some prototypical form of sensitivity to determiners in sentence processing and its use in computing noun reference exists already during early developmental stages surrounding the child's first words. We speculate on potential explanations for developmental changes between 12 and 18 months.