Vocal exploration and interaction in the emergence of speech

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议对早期人类发声进行纵向和微遗传学评估，作为言语的基础。这项工作从关注典型的声音发展开始，在一个进化知情的动态系统框架内，阐明了声音发展的关键特征。这项工作将继续测试这些关键特征在预测发育和发育异常（自闭症、语言迟缓）方面的作用。基础工作的重点是：1)婴儿积极探索发声的倾向，创造和系统地重复类别（最初是尖叫、咆哮、类似元音的声音等），这些类别在一岁后变得越来越像言语；2)婴儿倾向于使用这些类别进行互动；3)照顾者倾向于关注婴儿发声，并认识到婴儿发声类别及其如何表达婴儿状态和社会功能；4)动态互动，照顾者和婴儿系统地对发声做出反应，并以特定于婴儿发声类别及其功能的方式调节反应。这项工作的突破性之处在于：1)比之前的工作更详细地关注了构成照顾者-婴儿声音互动支点的声音类别，这些声音类别影响了发声及其社会功能；2)通过微遗传学方法，利用护理人员的计算机交互日记数据、广泛的实验室记录和家庭全天记录，改善对变化的看法；3)通过训练有素的观察员和声学分析人员在生命的前30个月对实验室和家庭录音进行复杂的编码，加强对婴儿和照顾者发声的看法；4)利用先进的定量工具（滞后序列分析、递归量化分析和神经网络建模），促进发声数据的快速、深刻处理；5)通过大量的人类编码和声学分析数据，以前所未有的规模（数千小时的自然记录）提供婴儿声音类别和护理人员声音反应的自动分析。这些方法将产生非凡的潜在影响，为发展解释提供一个经验性的典型发展参考点。影响研究将测试由研究确定的声音类别发展和相互作用的关键变量，使用研究中产生的自动化分析工具作为预测因素：1)发展，2)三组儿童（典型发育，自闭症，语言延迟）的分化，以及3)现有数据库中包括1486个全天录音的语言和社会发展的结果测量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose longitudinal and microgenetic evaluation of early human vocalizations as a foundation for speech. The work starts with focus on typical vocal development within an evolutionarily-informed, dynamic systems framework illuminating key features of vocal development. The work proceeds to test the key features in terms of their roles in predicting development and anomalies of development (autism, language delay). The basic work focuses on: 1) the infant tendency to actively explore vocalization, creating and systematically repeating categories (at first, squeals, growls, vowel-like sounds, etc.) that become increasingly speech-like across the 1st year, 2) the infant tendency to engage in interaction using those categories; 3) the caregiver tendency to attend to infant vocalization and recognize both the infant vocal categories and how they express infant state and social functions; and 4) the dynamic interaction, where caregiver and infant respond systematically to vocalizations and modulate reactions in ways that are specific to the infant vocal categories and their functions. This work breaks ground by: 1) focusing in much more detail than in prior work on the vocal categories that form the fulcrum of caregiver-infant vocal interaction, affecting both vocalizations and their social functions; 2) improving perspectives on change through microgenetic approaches with computer-interactive diary data from caregivers, extensive laboratory recordings, and all-day recordings in the home; 3) enhancing perspectives on both infant and caregiver vocalizations through sophisticated coding of both lab and home recordings by trained observers and acoustic analysts across many dimensions of action during the 1st 30 months of life; 4) exploiting advanced quantitative tools (lag sequential analysis, recurrence quantification analysis, and neural network modeling) to facilitate rapid and insightful processing of vocalization data; and 5) providing automated analysis of infant vocal categories and caregiver vocal reactions at unprecedented scales (thousands of hours of naturalistic recording) informed and validated by an extensive body of human coded and acoustically analyzed data. These approaches will yield extraordinary potential impact by providing an empirical typically-developing reference point for developmental interpretation. Impact studies will test the key variables of vocal category development and interaction determined by the research using automated analytical tools also produced in the research as predictors of 1) development, 2) differentiation of three groups of children (typically developing, autistic, language delayed), and 3) outcome measures of language and social development in an existing database including 1486 all-day recordings. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This work will provide scientific foundations in vocal development and language, and foundations for automated large-scale developmental monitoring of typically developing infant vocalizations and interactions. The work will predict developmental level, anomalies of development (autism, language delay) and outcomes on language and social measures.