The Development of Phonetic Perception

我的研究项目考察了语音片段(元音和辅音)水平上的言语感知发展。广泛的目标是充分描述婴儿对言语的反应中表现出的知觉偏见，解释这些知觉偏见是如何以及何时在发育过程中形成的，并了解它们在口语习得中的作用。在研究1和研究2中，我们研究了局部元音的偏向。这种偏见表明，我们人类对发音动作塑造身体语音信号的方式非常敏感，这在成年人和6至12个月大的婴儿中得到了很好的证明。在研究1中，我们将测量4个年龄组(新生儿、2岁、4岁)的局部元音偏向(使用听觉元音)，并扩展我们对婴儿如何整合不同感觉模式的语音信息的知识。*在研究3和研究4中，我们调查了婴儿说话者的偏见，这是我们最近的突破性发现，即说话前(4-6个月)的婴儿更喜欢听具有婴儿说话者的声音特性的元音，而不是成年人发出的元音。在研究3中，我们将测量4个较小年龄组(新生儿、2岁、4岁)的婴儿说话者的倾向性。S在形成这种倾向性方面有自己的发声。在研究4中，我们将研究听婴儿语言是否比听成人语言声音更有效地诱导特定的婴儿反应。当婴儿听到元音时，我们将记录他们的发声和嘴部动作，并测量他们的心率(以表示注意力)和面部肌肉(以表示微笑)的变化。我们还将使用一种新的、对婴儿友好的超声波记录界面来记录婴儿的舌头运动。有证据表明，婴儿言语是激发特定婴儿行为的有力刺激，这将具有重要的理论和实践意义。这一结果将表明，获得婴儿语言具有非常广泛和有意义的影响--影响语言发展的接受性、表现性和激励性方面。新的超声接口还将对目前的工作产生重大影响，使我们能够探索早期关节发育的未知方面。

My research program examines the development of speech perception on the level of phonetic segments (vowels and consonants). The broad objective is to fully portray perceptual biases that infants display in response to speech, explain how and when these perceptual biases form in development, and understand their role in the acquisition of spoken language. The research proposed here focuses on two well-established perceptual biases.******In Studies 1 and 2, we investigate the focal vowel bias. This bias demonstrates our exquisite human sensitivity to the way that articulatory movements shape the physical speech signal, and is well documented in adults and 6- to 12-month-olds. In Study 1, we will measure the focal vowel bias (using auditory vowels) in 4 age groups (newborns, 2, 4 as, and expand our knowledge on how infants integrate speech information across different sensory modalities. ******In Studies 3 and 4 we investigate the infant talker bias, which is our recent, ground breaking discovery that pre-babbling infants (4 - 6 months) prefer to listen to vowel sounds that have the vocal properties of an infant talker over vowels produced by an adult. In study 3, we will measure the infant talker bias in 4 younger age groups (newborns, 2, 4 s own vocalizations in shaping this bias. In study 4, we will examine whether specific infant responses are induced more effectively by listening to infant speech than to adult speech sounds. While pre-babbling infants listen to vowels sounds, we will record their vocalizations and mouth movements and also measure changes in their heart rate (to index attention) and facial muscles (to index smiling). We will also record infant tongue movements using a new, infant-friendly ultrasound recording interface. Evidence that infant speech is a potent stimulus for provoking specific infant behaviors would have significant theoretical and practical implications. This outcome would indicate that access to infant speech has a very broad and meaningful impact - influencing receptive, expressive, and motivational aspects of speech development. The new ultrasound interface will also have a significant impact beyond the present work, by allowing us to explore uncharted aspects of early articulatory development.*********