Early Ontogeny of Attunement to the Language Environment

描述（由申请人提供）：随着婴儿获得环境语言， 他们变得适应它的发音特性， 用于语音功能。该项目的长期目标是 了解母语经验如何塑造言语 感知和生产。婴儿，谁可以获得任何人类语言， 成为周围成人语言的母语听众？ 对成年人言语感知和产生的特定年龄限制， 它们在婴儿中的出现，为我们研究这一过程提供了一个窗口 语言对幼儿和成人的影响的研究。我们的第一 具体目的是考察知觉经验如何与环境语言相结合 为特定语言的语音发展奠定了基础。在此之前， 我们发展了一种理论解释， 对非母语语音信息的感知，被称为感知 同化模型（PAM）。PAM提供婴儿和成人的预测 歧视非本地的对比，这一直坚持为成年人， 几种语言环境，以及婴儿感知能力的发展 非本土的对比。在下一个补助期，我们检验假设， 非母语对比的知觉同化是由发音预测的 因素，在比较美国英语，丹麦语，法语，意大利语和 韩国听众我们研究了语言特异性的神经基础 知觉协调功能磁共振成像研究。同时，我们对早期协调的研究 扩展到测试的发音方面的非母语的看法 被学龄前儿童和婴儿。第二个具体目标是描述 在生产中发展特定语言的趋势，特别是在 婴儿发声的语音特性。我们扩大对 在英语，法语和英语的咿呀学语中的语音差异 幼儿在后半年学习普通话，检验关于 语言特异性效应在婴儿语言产出中的出现 辅音、元音和音节组织。我们还研究了 知觉和生产的研究，婴儿模仿的讲话和 非言语的发声的发音姿势。语音发展研究 早期干预对发展性语言的重要意义， 语言缺陷语音障碍占很大比例， 语言治疗的案例此外，研究表明， 意识是儿童阅读缺陷的主要原因。因此， 关于正常的语音发展可以提供发展的见解， 阅读障碍。最后，本研究有助于理解 第二语言学习，一个基本的重要问题，在我们的 越来越多语言和多文化的社会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As infants acquire the ambient language, they become attuned to its articulatory properties and to how they are harnessed for phonological functions. This project's long-term goal is to understand the way in which native language experience comes to shape speech perception and production. How do infants, who can acquire any human language, become native speaker-listeners of the ambient adult language? Language-specific constraints on adults' speech perception and production, and their emergence in infants, provide a window on this process, which we examine in studies of language-specific effects in young children and adults. Our first specific aim is to examine how perceptual experience with the ambient language lays the foundation for language-specific phonological development. Previously, we developed a theoretical account of native phonological constraints on perception of nonnative phonetic information, referred to as the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM). PAM offers predictions of infants' and adults' discrimination of nonnative contrasts, which have been upheld for adults from several language environments, as well as for development of infants' perception of nonnative contrasts. In the next grant period, we test the hypothesis that perceptual assimilation of nonnative contrasts is predicted by articulatory factors, in studies comparing American English, Danish, French, Italian, and Korean listeners. We investigate the neural basis of language-specific perceptual attunement with fMRI studies. Also, our research on early attunement is extended to test the perception of articulatory aspects of nonnative speech by preschoolers and infants. The second specific aim is to characterize development of language-specific tendencies in production specifically in the phonetic properties of infant vocalizations. We extend our investigation of phonetic differences in the babbling of English-, French-, and Mandarin-learning infants during the second half-year, testing hypotheses about the emergence of language-specific effects in infants' productions of consonants, vowels, and syllabic organization. We also examine the link between perception and production in studies on infant imitation of speech and nonspeech vocal articulatory gestures. Phonological development research has important implications for early intervention on developmental speech and language deficits. Phonological disorders constitute a large proportion of speech therapy caseloads. Also, research suggests impaired phonological awareness is a primary cause of reading deficits in children. Thus, knowledge about normal phonological development can provide insights into developmental reading disabilities. Finally, this research is relevant to understanding second language learning, an issue of fundamental importance in our increasingly multilingual and multicultural society.