Prosodic information bootstraps language learning in infancy

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Language acquisition is one of the hallmark accomplishments of human development. To successfully acquire language, a child must learn about word meaning (semantics) and how words combine to create sentences (syntax). Prior to this, infants are learning about sounds and sound combinations, recognizing some highly frequent word forms, finding words in speech stream, and building representations. Remarkably, infants acquire a great deal of their language within the first 2 years of life. This complex task is supported by the rich input and statistical mechanisms as the language learning system begins to store and organize information. Our PRIMIR framework (Processing Rich Information from Multidimensional Interactive Representations: Curtin et al., 2011; Werker & Curtin, 2005) includes representational spaces for storing information, learning mechanisms for altering extant representations and building new ones, and dynamic filters (perceptual biases, task demands, and developmental level) that direct information processing. Building on this framework, my NSERC research tests the need to incorporate a prosodic bootstrapping mechanism working in conjunction with general learning mechanisms to facilitate word learning. Specifically, one way for the infant to 'bootstrap' acquisition is by attending to highly salient information in speech. Prosodic information, such as word stress and rhythm, can highlight linguistic structure such as words, their grammatical categories, and sentence boundaries. The overarching goal of my research is to test how prosodic information - specifically word stress - facilitates the detection of linguistic structure in the speech input and bootstraps language learning. A comprehensive exploration of the processes underlying word learning involves consideration of multiple sources of influence, from basic perception of speech, to the use of complex structures to establish word-referent relationships, such as infants' use of sentences to glean grammatical function to determine word meaning. The proposed experiments reflect these multiple levels of influence on early language learning. The findings from this research program will be of interest to cognitive psychologists, developmental psychologists, and psycholinguists. It will be of particular interest to NSE scientists because understanding speech development is necessary for discovering the neurological and physiological underpinnings of the behaviour and for the advancement speech technologies, such as speech recognition systems.