What Can We Perceive In Infant Vocalization?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alanna Beyak ◽  
Olivia Cadieux ◽  
Matthew T. Cook ◽  
Carly Cressman ◽  
Barbie Jain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Infant Research ◽  
Infant Vocalization ◽  
Infant Vocalizations ◽  
Social Dynamic ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Infant Language ◽  
Better Than

Infant vocalization is a well-studied area of development, however, there is a noticeable gap in the literature regarding adult identification of infant vocalization. Authors of the present study collected data from 626 undergraduate students who listened to 100-500 ms audio clips of infant vocalization. Researchers asked participants to identify infants in the audio clips as male/female, English/non-English, and 0-7 months/8-18 months/19-36 months of age. Participants were unable to determine the sex of the infant better than chance but were able to determine the infant’s language and age significantly better than chance, t (463)= 4.4618, p < .001, and t (463) = 17.714, p < .001, respectively. Exploratory follow-up analyses did not reveal an effect of caregiving experience, childcare experience, or participant gender on a participants’ ability to correctly identify the infant’s age or language. This research has implications for determining what is and is not perceivable in infant vocalizations. This is an underrepresented topic in infant research as most work has demonstrated what infants can perceive; not what caregivers can. This is an important contribution because infant language development has been demonstrated to include a complex social dynamic between adults and infants.

scholarly journals Relationship Between Parent Vowel Hyperarticulation in Infant-Directed Speech and Infant Phonetic Complexity on the Level of Conversational Turns

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrika Marklund ◽  
Ellen Marklund ◽  
Lisa Gustavsson
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Potential Explanation ◽  
Infant Vocalization ◽  
Infant Vocalizations ◽  
Processing Resources ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Infant Language ◽  
Conversational Turns ◽  
The Relationship

When speaking to infants, parents typically use infant-directed speech, a speech register that in several aspects differs from that directed to adults. Vowel hyperarticulation, that is, extreme articulation of vowels, is one characteristic sometimes found in infant-directed speech, and it has been suggested that there exists a relationship between how much vowel hyperarticulation parents use when speaking to their infant and infant language development. In this study, the relationship between parent vowel hyperarticulation and phonetic complexity of infant vocalizations is investigated. Previous research has shown that on the level of subject means, a positive correlational relationship exists. However, the previous findings do not provide information about the directionality of that relationship. In this study the relationship is investigated on a conversational turn level, which makes it possible to draw conclusions on whether the behavior of the infant is impacting the parent, the behavior of the parent is impacting the infant, or both. Parent vowel hyperarticulation was quantified using the vhh-index, a measure that allows vowel hyperarticulation to be estimated for individual vowel tokens. Phonetic complexity of infant vocalizations was calculated using the Word Complexity Measure for Swedish. Findings were unexpected in that a negative relationship was found between parent vowel hyperarticulation and phonetic complexity of the immediately following infant vocalization. Directionality was suggested by the fact that no such relationship was found between infant phonetic complexity and vowel hyperarticulation of the immediately following parent utterance. A potential explanation for these results is that high degrees of vowel hyperarticulation either provide, or co-occur with, large amounts of phonetic and/or linguistic information, which may occupy processing resources to an extent that affects production of the next vocalization.

Infant vocalizations and changes in experience

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. D. Hilke
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Infant Vocalizations ◽  
Reaction Index ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Two Indices ◽  
Infant Language

ABSTRACTThe possibility that infant vocalizations occur in conjunction with significant changes in experience was tested in a study of seven infants aged 0;8. Each infant was videotaped during an isolated freeplay session with each of three toys. Two indices of changing experience were used to identify portions of the tape where increased vocalizing was expected. The Place Index identified potentially significant changes in experience via major changes in locus of attention. The Reaction Index employed certain rapid changes in expression (e.g. smile, startle, browchange as indicators of corresponding changes in subjective experience. As predicted, periods of the tape encompassed by either or both of these indices evidenced significantly more vocalizations than remaining portions of the tape. Implications of these results for theories of infant communicative competence and for infant language development are discussed.

Effects of Prenatal Nicotine Exposure on Infant Language Development: A Cohort Follow Up Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 734-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Hernández-Martínez ◽  
Núria Voltas Moreso ◽  
Blanca Ribot Serra ◽  
Victoria Arija Val ◽  
Joaquín Escribano Macías ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Nicotine Exposure ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
Prenatal Nicotine Exposure ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Prenatal Nicotine ◽  
Infant Language

scholarly journals Parents should keep talking to boost infant language development

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Starting School ◽  
Infant Language ◽  
First Year Of Life

Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer language skills when starting school than those from higher SES backgrounds. Now, data shows that increasing the amount of “contingent talk”— whereby a caregiver talks about objects that an infant is directly focusing on — within an infant’s first year of life promotes a wide vocabulary later in infancy.

The Effects of Maternal Depression on Infant Language Development

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Danko ◽  
Kevin Everhart ◽  
Peter Kaplan ◽  
Elizabeth Allen
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Maternal Depression ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Infant Language

scholarly journals Neonatal White Matter Maturation Is Associated With Infant Language Development

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina M. Sket ◽  
Judith Overfeld ◽  
Martin Styner ◽  
John H. Gilmore ◽  
Sonja Entringer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Language Development ◽  
White Matter Maturation ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Infant Language
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