Language Specific Speech Perception: A Mechanism for Language Acquisition

人类婴儿的特殊之处并不在于他们复杂的言语感知（因为动物对人类言语的感知是相似的），而在于他们使用言语来调节语言注意力和引导语言。使用一种新的有效的措施，语言特定的言语知觉（辨别能力的母语减去非母语的语音），我们可以确定资源的分配在语言任务。这将与大量的实验心理语言学技术相结合，以调查语音处理基础的词汇发展，正常和诵读困难的阅读能力，和成人语言的第一和第二语言处理，推导出一个动态的新概念的语言发展。

What is exceptional about human infants is not their sophisticated speech perception (for animals perceive human speech similarly) but their use of speech to regulate linguistic attention and bootstrap language. Using a new validated measure, language specific speech perception (discrimination ability for native minus non-native speech sounds), we can ascertain the distribution of resources in linguistic tasks. This will be used in conjunction with a raft of experimental psycholinguistic techniques to investigate speech processing bases of vocabulary development, normal and dyslexic reading ability, and adult linguistic first and second language processing; to derive a dynamic new conception of language development.