Auditory constraints on infant language learning

婴儿语言学习的听觉限制

• 批准号: 7486009
• 负责人: Jessica S Hay
• 金额: $ 4.96万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-04-01 至 2010-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7486009
• 关键词: Address; Adult; Affect; Area; Attention; Auditory; Auditory system; Categories; Child; Clinical; Cochlear Implants; Critiques; Cues; Discrimination; Disease; Elements; Exposure to; Future; Goals; Grouping; Human Characteristics; Impairment; Infant; Intervention; Language; Language Development; Learning; Linguistics; Loudness; Machine Learning; Methods; Numbers; Pattern; Phonetics; Population; Procedures; Process; Research; Research Personnel; Risk; Role; Signal Transduction; Specificity; Speech; Speech Perception; Speech Sound; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Toddler; age effect; experience; phonology; programs; research study; sound; statistics; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the current research is to investigate auditory constraints on general learning mechanisms (GLMs) underlying infant language acquisition. There have been numerous demonstrations of the importance of GLMs in word segmentation, and more recently this approach has been extended to phoneme acquisition. The primary critique of GLMs is that they are too computationally powerful. Without constraints, it would be difficult to extract only meaningful regularities, making the task of language acquisition a potentially intractable problem. Auditory constraints may provide a good framework on which GLMs can operate, facilitating the task of language acquisition. The first Specific Aim of the research proposed in this application is to examine the relationships between auditory sensitivities and distributional learning during phoneme acquisition. 7.5-month-old infants will be exposed to either a unimodal or a bimodal distribution of speech sounds. A habituation procedure will be used to test the hypothesis that the presence of a region of increased auditory sensitivity at a category boundary will facilitate phoneme acquisition. The second Specific Aim is to investigate the relationship between rhythmic grouping biases and statistical learning during word segmentation from fluent speech. Following familiarization to an artificial language that contains both statistical and rhythmic cues to words boundaries, 6.5- and 8.5-month-old infants are expected to mis-segment the statistical words in the language if the statistics and the perceived rhythmic grouping are inconsistent. Age effects are expected only if linguistic experience is necessary for auditory rhythmic grouping biases to emerge. The third Specific Aim is to assess the domain generality of the mechanisms described in the first and second aims. Non-speech stimuli will be used to assess the generality of distributional and statistical learning in the same types of category learning and segmentation tasks. The goal of this research is to understand how the auditory system of a typically developing infant structures language learning. In some atypical populations, it is unclear whether language acquisition is delayed because the auditory system is compromised or because the mechanisms responsible for learning are compromised. Future studies will use these tasks to assess learning in atypical language learners (e.g., young children with phonological disorders, toddlers with cochlear implants, infants at risk for language impairments), with the eventual goal of developing new interventions for use in clinical populations.

描述（由申请人提供）：目前的研究的目标是调查听觉的一般学习机制（GLM）的婴儿语言习得的限制。已经有大量的证据表明GLM在分词中的重要性，最近这种方法已经扩展到音素获取。对GLM的主要批评是它们在计算上过于强大。如果没有约束，就很难只提取有意义的词，这使得语言习得的任务成为一个潜在的棘手问题。听觉约束可以为语言学习模型提供一个良好的运作框架，从而促进语言习得。本研究的第一个具体目的是探讨音素习得过程中听觉敏感性与分布学习之间的关系。7.5个月大的婴儿将暴露于单峰或双峰分布的语音。一个习惯化的过程将被用来测试的假设，即在一个类别的边界增加听觉灵敏度的区域的存在将促进音素收购。第二个具体目标是研究从流利的语音中进行分词时节奏分组偏差和统计学习之间的关系。熟悉人工语言，包含统计和节奏线索的话的边界，6.5和8.5个月大的婴儿预计会错误分割的统计字的语言，如果统计和感知的节奏分组是不一致的。年龄的影响，预计只有当语言经验是必要的听觉节奏分组偏见出现。第三个具体目标是评估第一个和第二个目标所述机制的领域一般性。非言语刺激将被用来评估在相同类型的类别学习和分割任务的分布和统计学习的一般性。本研究的目的是了解一个典型的发展中的婴儿的听觉系统是如何结构的语言学习。在一些非典型人群中，目前还不清楚语言习得延迟是因为听觉系统受损还是因为负责学习的机制受损。未来的研究将使用这些任务来评估非典型语言学习者的学习（例如，有语音障碍的幼儿、植入人工耳蜗的幼儿、有语言障碍风险的婴儿），最终目标是开发新的干预措施，供临床人群使用。