Human adults and human infants show a “perceptual magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not

Human infants appear to be capable of the rudimentary mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, and ordering. To determine whether infants are capable of extracting ratios, we presented 6-month-old infants with multiple examples of a single ratio. After repeated presentations of this ratio, the infants were presented with new examples of a new ratio, as well as new examples of the previously habituated ratio. Infants were able to successfully discriminate two ratios that differed by a factor of 2, but failed to detect the difference between two numerical ratios that differed by a factor of 1.5. We conclude that infants can extract a common ratio across test scenes and use this information while examining new displays. The results support an approximate magnitude-estimation system, which has also been found in animals and human adults.

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Prototypes and the perceptual magnet effect in the perception of vowels.

10.22215/etd/2000-04565 ◽

2000 ◽

Author(s):

Kathy Bharrathisingh

Keyword(s):

Magnet Effect ◽

Perceptual Magnet Effect

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The ontogeny of human laughter

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2021.0319 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (9) ◽

pp. 20210319

Author(s):

Mariska E. Kret ◽

Dianne Venneker ◽

Bronwen Evans ◽

Iliana Samara ◽

Disa Sauter

Keyword(s):

Social Learning ◽

Early Development ◽

Production System ◽

Human Infant ◽

Human Infants ◽

Vocal Production ◽

Replication Studies ◽

Adult Humans ◽

Human Adults ◽

Human Laughter

Human adult laughter is characterized by vocal bursts produced predominantly during exhalation, yet apes laugh while exhaling and inhaling. The current study investigated our hypothesis that laughter of human infants changes from laughter similar to that of apes to increasingly resemble that of human adults over early development. We further hypothesized that the more laughter is produced on the exhale, the more positively it is perceived. To test these predictions, novice ( n = 102) and expert (phonetician, n = 15) listeners judged the extent to which human infant laughter ( n = 44) was produced during inhalation or exhalation, and the extent to which they found the laughs pleasant and contagious. Support was found for both hypotheses, which were further confirmed in two pre-registered replication studies. Likely through social learning and the anatomical development of the vocal production system, infants' initial ape-like laughter transforms into laughter similar to that of adult humans over the course of ontogeny.

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Pitch accents show a perceptual magnet effect: Evidence of internal structure in intonation categories

10.21437/speechprosody.2016-143 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joe Rodd ◽

Aoju Chen

Keyword(s):

Internal Structure ◽

Magnet Effect ◽

Perceptual Magnet Effect ◽

Pitch Accents

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