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Newborn categorization of vowel‐like sounds
Author(s) -
Aldridge Michelle A.,
Stillman Robert D.,
Bower Thomas G. R.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-7687.00167
Subject(s) - habituation , vowel , categorization , psychology , perception , preference , mid vowel , active listening , speech perception , space (punctuation) , audiology , auditory perception , communication , cognitive psychology , speech recognition , linguistics , mathematics , statistics , neuroscience , computer science , formant , medicine , philosophy
While there are many theories of the development of speech perception, there are few data on speech perception in human newborns. This paper examines the manner in which newborns responded to a set of stimuli that define one surface of the adult vowel space. Experiment 1 used a preferential listening/habituation paradigm to discover how newborns divide that vowel space. Results indicated that there were zones of high preference flanked by zones of low preference. The zones of high preference approximately corresponded to areas where adults readily identify vowels. Experiment 2 presented newborns with pairs of vowels from the zones found in Experiment 1. One member of each pair was the most preferred vowel from a zone, and the other member was the least preferred vowel from the adjacent zone of low preference. The pattern of preference was preserved in Experiment 2. However, a comparison of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that habituation had occurred in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that the habituation seen in Experiment 1 was due to processes of categorization, by using a familiarization preference paradigm. The results supported the hypothesis that newborns categorized the vowel space in an adult‐like manner, with vowels perceived as relatively good or poor exemplars of a vowel category.