Object Familiarity Enhances Infants' Use of Phonetic Detail in Novel Words
Object Familiarity Enhances Infants' Use of Phonetic Detail in Novel Words
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DOI:
10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00080.x
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发表时间:
2012-01-01
期刊:
影响因子:
2.6
通讯作者:
Fennell, Christopher T.
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Fennell, Christopher T.
Infants greatly refine their ability to discriminate language sounds by 12 months, yet 14-month-olds appear to confuse similar-sounding novel words. Two explanations could account for this phenomenon: infants initially have incomplete phoneme representations, suggesting developmental discontinuity; or word-learning demands interfere with use of established phonetic detail. These hypotheses were tested at 14 months by pairing a novel word with an object preexposed to half the infants and novel to the other half. If demands are key, only preexposed infants should efficiently use phonetic detail; there is no need to concurrently learn object details with the word. If representations lack detail, object familiarity should not matter. Only infants preexposed to the object noticed a change in its label, thus challenging the discontinuity position and demonstrating the impact of object familiarity on early word learning.