The role of variability in infants' phonological learning

描述（由申请人提供）：该奖学金的目标是：（1）将候选人在单词学习和语音类别学习方面的现有研究培训与一个新的语言领域，语音规则概括联系起来;（2）评估类似的机制是否支持单词学习和语音规则概括，这两个语言领域一直被认为是定性不同的;特别是，以评估是否在一个维度上的变化无关的学习任务促进学习类似的两个领域。在单词学习任务中，当婴儿习惯于单词-物体对时，说话者的声音中引入了可变性。在语音规则学习任务中，婴儿熟悉一种语言，其中3音节单词遵守辅音发音规则（例如，前两个音节必须具有相同的发音），并且在元音中引入可变性。（3）通过让学生接触新的语言习得主题、分布学习和语音规则学习，以及新的研究方法、人工语言方法和头转向偏好程序，培养学生新的研究技能;和（4）补充候选人在这些新的主题和方法的研究培训与亚利桑那大学的相关机构培训，无论是通过言语感知，统计学和伦理学的相关课程，并积极参与实验室会议，研讨会，以及心理学，认知科学和言语，语言和听力科学的座谈会。奖学金培训的这些目标，通过扩大候选人的语言习得的知识，扩大她的专业知识，以新的方法和理论问题，并促进她的出版记录，将支持她建立自己的研究实验室，并确保终身教授在研究型大学的长期职业目标。这项研究对语言治疗有一定的意义。目前的语音治疗方法通常不能完全产生临床外的泛化，并且在治疗期间提供的语音输入缺乏可变性可能是一个限制因素。识别哪些类型的非标准变异性增强了对语音对比和语音对比的关注，可以大大提高言语治疗的效果。特别是，在一个不相关但突出的维度上的变化可能会被用来吸引儿童对相关维度的注意，从而改善学习。 公共卫生相关性：目前的语音治疗方法通常不能完全产生临床外的泛化，并且在治疗期间提供的语音输入缺乏可变性可能是一个限制因素。识别哪些类型的非标准变异性增强了对语音对比和语音对比的关注，可以大大提高言语治疗的效果。特别是，在一个不相关但突出的维度上的变化可能会被用来吸引儿童对相关维度的注意，从而改善学习。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goals for this fellowship are: (1) to relate the candidate's existing research training in word learning and sound-category learning to a new linguistic domain, phonological-rule generalization; (2) to evaluate whether similar mechanisms support word learning and phonological-rule generalization, two linguistic domains that have been argued to be qualitatively distinct; in particular, to evaluate whether variability on a dimension irrelevant to the learning task facilitates learning analogously in the two domains. In the word- learning task, variability is introduced in the talkers' voices when infants are habituated to the word-object pairs. In the phonological-rule learning task, infants are familiarized to a language in which 3-syllable words obey a consonant-voicing rule (e.g., the 1st 2 syllables must have the same voicing), and variability is introduced in the vowels. To investigate the mechanism by which variability facilitates learning in the two domains, the distributional structure of the variability in each domain is also manipulated; (3) to develop new research skills for the candidate by exposing her to new language-acquisition topics, distributional learning and phonological-rule learning, and new methodologies, artificial-language methods and the head-turn preference procedure; and (4) to supplement the candidate's research training in these new topics and methods with relevant institutional training at the University of Arizona, both through pertinent courses in speech perception, statistics, and ethics, and active participation in lab meetings, seminars, and colloquia across Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. These goals for the fellowship training, by broadening the candidate's knowledge of language acquisition, expanding her expertise to new methods and theoretical questions, and furthering her publication record, will support her long-term career goals of establishing her own research laboratory and securing a tenure-track professorship at a research university. The proposed research has implications for speech therapy. Current speech therapy methods often fail to fully yield of out-of-clinic generalization, and lack of variability in the speech input provided during therapy may be one limiting factor. Identifying what types of noncriterial variability enhance attention to phonological contrasts and phonological regularities could greatly improve the efficacy of speech therapy. In particular, variability on an irrelevant but salient dimension could potentially be used to draw children's attention to the relevant dimension, improving learning. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Current speech therapy methods often fail to fully yield of out-of-clinic generalization, and lack of variability in the speech input provided during therapy may be one limiting factor. Identifying what types of noncriterial variability enhance attention to phonological contrasts and phonological regularities could greatly improve the efficacy of speech therapy. In particular, variability on an irrelevant but salient dimension could potentially be used to draw children's attention to the relevant dimension, improving learning.