Development of Native Language Preference: Behavioral and Physiological Indices

先前的研究表明，在婴儿出生的第一年内，他们能够区分自己的母语和一种他们以前从未听过的语言。事实上，他们更喜欢听母语，而不是不熟悉的语言。在这项研究的第一部分，母语偏好--通过倾听时间或心率测量--将被用来记录每个婴儿在语言输入中接受了多少和做得有多好。此外，通过对对母语有偏好和没有偏好的婴儿进行纵向跟踪，该项目旨在确定是否可以使用偏好衡量标准来索引以后的言语和语言发展。学习英语和西班牙语的婴儿将研究母语偏好与言语和语言发展之间的关系。这项研究的最后一个组成部分将确定婴儿依靠什么信息来区分他们的母语和类似但不熟悉的语言。当语音的不同元素--辅音和元音，或者节奏和语调--被移除时，婴儿重新合成母语和非母语的听力时间将有助于解决这个问题。这项工作旨在将对出生一岁的婴儿能力的基础研究应用于开发一种工具，用于早期识别言语和语言发育迟缓的儿童。通过追踪在出生后15个月内任何时候都可以测量到的母语偏好与语言发展的关系，这项研究可能会为一些儿童似乎在语言习得方面存在困难提供洞察。此外，通过测试学习西班牙语的婴儿，我们正在为未来双语婴儿学习西班牙语和英语的研究奠定基础。考虑到美国某些地区约40%-50%的家庭使用西班牙语，这一点至关重要。最后，该项目所进行的研究将为一名研究生和几名本科生提供教育机会。

Previous research shows that within the first year of life infants are able to distinguish their native language from a language they have never heard before. In fact, they prefer to listen to their native language over an unfamiliar language. In the first component of this research, native language preference--measured using listening time or heart rate measures--will be used to capture how much and how well each infant takes in linguistic input that is available to her. In addition, by following infants with and without a preference for their native language longitudinally, the project aims to determine whether a preference measure can be used to index speech and language development later in life. The relationship between native language preference and speech and language development later in life will be investigated for English- as well as Spanish-learning infants. The final component of the research will determine what information infants rely on to distinguish their native language from a similar, yet unfamiliar language. Infants' listening time to re-synthesized native and non-native language when different elements of the speech--consonants and vowels, or the rhythm and intonation--are removed will help address this question. This work seeks to apply basic research on the abilities infants in the first year of life towards developing a tool for early identification of children with speech and language delays. By tracing the relationship of native language preference that can be measured anytime within the first 15-months of life and later language development, this research may provide insight into why some children seem to have difficulties with language acquisition. Further, by testing Spanish-learning infants as well we are laying the foundation for future research with bilingual infants learning Spanish and English. This is critical given that Spanish is spoken in about 40-50% of the homes in certain parts of the US. Finally, the research undertaken in this project will provide educational opportunities for a graduate student and several undergraduate students.