Attentional processes in infant bilinguals

几乎所有关于婴儿语言发展的实验工作都集中在单语者身上。然而，由于移民、官方语言政策和文化规范，许多加拿大婴儿是在双语环境中长大的。从出生开始学习两种语言的最初任务可能并不容易。由于他们同时接触两种语言，每一种语言都有不同的声音库存，双语婴儿在早期阶段处理语音信息的方式可能与单语婴儿不同。目前的研究考察了双语婴儿对音素变化的注意和音素表征细节的数量。音素是语言中最小的有意义的声音单位（例如，bit和bet中的元音）。先前的研究表明，双语婴儿可能不会注意到某些音位的变化（有点打赌），而单语婴儿会注意到同样的变化。最近的一项假设是，双语婴儿有丰富的音素表征，但对音素变化麻木，因为他们经常通过重音说话（例如，听到爸爸说带法语口音的英语单词）和同源词（在他们的语言中听到发音相似的单词，如“bank”和“banque”）来经历这种微小的变化。或者，双语婴儿可能确实没有那么详细的音素心理表征。我建议使用各种方法进行多项研究，以检验双语者对音素变化的注意及其音素表征。首先，我们将确定双语婴儿是否比单语婴儿更成功地识别不同口音产生的单词。其次，我们将在一个不需要对音素变化做出“惊讶”反应的辨别任务中测试双语婴儿，这应该有助于他们的表现。最后，我们将研究双语婴儿对音素变化的生理反应。我们将观察他们的神经反应（通过脑电波监测）和心率，因为这两项指标都与注意力有关。我们可能会在基本的生理水平上看到反应，而不是在明显的行为水平上看到。上述实验将大大补充双语语音感知方面的稀缺文献，并将告诉研究人员双语及其相关因素如何影响早期发展阶段的基本语音感知和注意等基本过程。我们还试图验证一个特别针对婴儿双语语音感知的极少数假设。通过对双语婴儿的研究，我们可以对所有婴儿的语言发展有更深入的了解。此外，这些研究的发现可以通过揭示年轻双语者如何获得和关注语言声音，对父母和教育工作者具有实际意义。

Nearly all experimental work in infant language development focuses on monolinguals. Yet, due to immigration, official language policies, and cultural norms, many Canadian infants are raised in a bilingual environment. The initial task of learning two languages from birth is potentially not an easy one. Due to their simultaneous exposure to two languages, each with different sound inventories, bilingual infants may process speech information differently than monolinguals at the earliest stages. The current research examines bilingual infants’ attention to phoneme changes and the amount of detail in phoneme representations. Phonemes are the smallest meaningful sound units in a language (e.g., the vowels in bit and bet). Previous research showed that bilingual infants may not notice when certain phonemes change (bit to bet), yet monolinguals will notice the same change. A recent hypothesis is that bilingual infants have rich phoneme representations, but are numb to phoneme changes because they often experience such small alterations via accented speech (e.g., hearing Dad produce English words with a French accent) and cognates (hearing similar sounding words across their languages, like “bank” and “banque”). Or, bilingual infants may indeed have less detailed mental representations of phonemes. I propose multiple studies using various methods in order to examine bilinguals’ attention to phoneme changes and their phoneme representations. First, we will determine if bilingual infants are more successful than monolinguals at identifying words produced in a different accent. Second, we will test bilingual infants in a discrimination task that does not require a “surprise” reaction to a phoneme change, which should facilitate their performance. Finally, we will examine bilingual infants’ physiological reactions to phoneme changes. We will observe their neural reactions (via brain wave monitoring) and their heart rates, as both these measure are related to attention. We may see reactions at basic physiological levels not seen at the overt behavioural level. The above set of experiments will significantly add to the scarce literature on bilingual speech perception and will inform researchers of how bilingualism and its associated factors affect fundamental processes like basic perception of and attention to speech in the earliest stages of development. We also seek to validate one of the very few hypotheses that specifically address infant bilingual speech perception. Through studies with bilingual infants, we can gain a deeper understanding of language development in all infants. Further, the findings emerging from these studies can have practical implications for parents and educators by revealing how young bilinguals acquire and attend to language sounds.