Characteristics of Prelinguistic Vocalizations that Facilitate Social Feedback

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究将调查语言前婴儿和照顾者之间的沟通发展，以更好地了解早期社会互动如何促进语言学习。PI过去的研究表明，照顾者对语言前发声（即咿呀学语）的偶然反应对婴儿的言语和语言发展有直接和长期的促进作用。尽管早期照顾者的反应对婴儿学习的重要性，影响照顾者反应的婴儿发声的特点是未知的。所提出的研究利用回放范式，这是一种广泛用于动物交流研究的方法。在回放范例中，预先记录的听觉或视觉信号被呈现给个体，其反应被测量。当应用于人类的沟通发展时，照顾者将对预先录制的不熟悉的婴儿的发声和动作的视听回放做出反应。婴儿发声的声学特性将被操纵，以系统地检查其对成人反应的影响。项目1将开发几种应对措施，并验证回放范例作为父母行为的衡量标准。为了评估反应措施的有效性，父母对回放刺激的反应将与他们在玩耍期间对自己的婴儿的反应进行比较。接下来，将使用回放范式来指定引起父母反应的前语言发声的声学特征。项目2将 评估积累经验对反应能力的作用。首先，将在回放范例中对具有不同水平的学习经验的成年人进行测试。将无子女的成年人的反应与高或低水平的生育经验进行比较，与一个或多个孩子的父母。项目2还将审查整个生育过渡期间产妇反应的变化。在许多哺乳动物中，母亲对幼仔的声音信号的反应在出生时发生了巨大的变化，但照顾者的经验在对非哭泣语前发声的反应中所起的作用尚未确定。 回放范式为研究早期交际发展提供了一种新的实验工具。通过调查语言前发声对照顾者行为的影响，拟议的研究将提高我们对未成熟声音在构建促进声乐学习进步的社会互动中的功能的理解。评估早期声乐学习的社会嵌入方式是理解沟通和语言发展的最早阶段的重要一步。回放模式最终可以用于改善父母与婴儿的沟通，例如在唐氏综合症或自闭症的早期发声发育中断的情况下。通过模拟与婴儿的声音发展受到发育障碍的影响，回放范式可能成为一个有用的干预工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research will investigate the development of communication between prelinguistic infants and caregivers to better understand how early social interactions facilitate language learning. The PI's past research has shown that caregivers' contingent responses to prelinguistic vocalizations (i.e. babbling) have both immediate and long-term facilitative effects on infants' speech and language development. Despite the importance of early caregiver responses for infant learning, the characteristics of infant vocalizations that influence caregiver responsiveness are unknown. The proposed studies utilize a playback paradigm, which is a method widely used in studies of animal communication. In a playback paradigm, prerecorded auditory or visual signals are presented to an individual, whose reaction is measured. As applied to human communicative development, caregivers will react to prerecorded audiovisual playbacks of unfamiliar infants' vocalizations and actions. The acoustic qualities of infants' vocalizations will be manipulated to systematically examine their effects on the responses of adults. Project 1 will develop several response measures and validate the playback paradigm as a measure of parental behavior. To assess the validity of the response measures, parents' reactions to the playback stimuli will be compared with their responses to their own infants during play. Next, the playback paradigm will be used to specify the acoustic features of prelinguistic vocalizations that elicit parents' responses. Project 2 will assess the role of caregiving experience on responsiveness. First, adults with varying levels of caregiving experience will be tested in the playback paradigm. The responsiveness of childless adults with high or low levels of caregiving experience will be compared with that of parents with one or multiple children. Project 2 will also examine changes in maternal responsiveness across the birth transition. In many mammals, maternal responsiveness to the acoustic signals of young undergoes dramatic change around the time of birth, but the role of caregiver experience in responding to non-cry prelinguistic vocalizations has yet to be determined. The playback paradigm introduces a new experimental tool for research on early communicative development. By investigating the effects of prelinguistic vocalizations on caregivers' behavior, the proposed studies will improve our understanding of the function of immature sounds in constructing social interactions that facilitate advances in vocal learning. Assessing the ways in which early vocal learning is socially embedded is an important step in understanding the earliest stages of communication and language development. The playback paradigm could eventually be used to improve parent-infant communication in circumstances where early vocal development is disrupted, for example in Down syndrome or autism. By simulating interactions with infants whose vocal development is affected by developmental disorders, the playback paradigm could become a useful intervention tool.