Call me Alix, not Elix: vowels are more important than consonants in own-name recognition at 5 months.

Camillia Bouchon*, Caroline Floccia, Thibaut Fux, Martine Adda-Decker, Thierry Nazzi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Consonants and vowels differ acoustically and articulatorily, but also functionally: Consonants are more relevant for lexical processing, and vowels for prosodic/syntactic processing. These functional biases could be powerful bootstrapping mechanisms for learning language, but their developmental origin remains unclear. The relative importance of consonants and vowels at the onset of lexical acquisition was assessed in French-learning 5-month-olds by testing sensitivity to minimal phonetic changes in their own name. Infants' reactions to mispronunciations revealed sensitivity to vowel but not consonant changes. Vowels were also more salient (on duration and intensity) but less distinct (on spectrally based measures) than consonants. Lastly, vowel (but not consonant) mispronunciation detection was modulated by acoustic factors, in particular spectrally based distance. These results establish that consonant changes do not affect lexical recognition at 5 months, while vowel changes do; the consonant bias observed later in development does not emerge until after 5 months through additional language exposure.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)587-598
Number of pages0
JournalDev Sci
Volume18
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2015

Keywords

  • Acoustic Stimulation
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Language Development
  • Learning
  • Male
  • Names
  • Phonetics
  • Speech Perception

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Call me Alix, not Elix: vowels are more important than consonants in own-name recognition at 5 months.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this