A precursor of language acquisition in young infants.

Surveying the terrain a brief historical perspective on language acquisition research early research on speech perception how speech perception develops in the first year the role of memory and attentional processes in the development of speech perception how attention to sound properties may facilitate learning other elements of linguistic organization relating perception to production wrapping things up. Appendix - methodology used in studies of infant speech perception.

https://www.gendocs.ru/docs/18/17604/conv_1/file1.pdf

The discovery of spoken language

2 experiments examined behavioral preferences for infant-directed (ID) speech over adult-directed (AD) speech in young infants. Using a modification of the visual-fixation-based auditory-preference procedure, Experiments 1 and 2 examined whether 12 1-month-old and 16 2-day-old infants looked longer at a visual stimulus when looking produced ID as opposed to AD speech. The results showed that both 1-month-olds and newborns preferrred ID over AD speech. Although the absolute magnitude of the ID speech preference was significantly greater, with the older infants showing longer looking durations than the younger infants, subsequent analyses showed no significant difference in the relative magnitude of this effect. Differences in overall looking times between the 2 groups apparently reflect task variables rather than differences in speech processing. These results suggest that infants' preference for the exaggerated prosodic features of ID speech is present from birth and may not depend on any specific postnatal experience. However, the possible role of prenatal auditory experience with speech is considered.

Preference for Infant-directed Speech in the First Month after Birth

Historical and current theories of infantile amnesia are examined. To evaluate the viability of these theories, as well as the phenomenon of infantile amnesia itself, a review of memory development from birth through the preschool years is provided, including an overview of relevant perceptual and neurological maturation. In the context of this review, extant theories of infantile amnesia are shown to falter, and it is concluded that infantile amnesia is a chimera of a previously unexplored relationship between the development of a cognitive sense of self and the personalization of event memory. This hypothesis is examined in detail and discussed in the context of related developments in language and social cognition.

On resolving the enigma of infantile amnesia.

Attention in Infancy. Attention in Infancy and the Prediction of Cognitive Capacities in Childhood (M.H. Bornstein). The Role of Motion in Infants' Perception of Occlusion (L.G. Craton and A. Yonas). Regulatory Mechanisms in Infant Development (M.K. Rothbart, M.I. Posner and A. Boylan). Temporal Structure of Stimulation Maintains Infant Attention (P.J. Dunham). Rules for Listening in Infancy (S.E. Trehub and L.J. Trainor). Selectivity and Early Infant Vocalization (K. Bloom). Attention in Childhood. Relations between Components of Visual Attention (J.T. Enns). More Evidence for a Common, Central Constraint on Speed of Processing (R. Kail). Texture Segregation in Young Children (T.C. Callaghan). Evidence for Efficient Visual Selectivity in Children (S.P. Tipper and J. McLaren). Covert Orienting in Young Children (D.A. Brodeur). The Development of Attentional Control Mechanisms (D.B. Kaye and E.M. Ruskin). Peripheral Vision in Young Children: Implications for the Study of Visual Attention (N. Akhtar). Cognitive Development and the Growth of Capacity: Issues in NeoPiagetian Theory (M. Chapman). Attention and Memory in Context-Independent and Context-Interactive Situations (B.P. Ackerman). Attentional Capacity and Children's Memory Strategy Use (R.E. Guttentag and P.A. Ornstein). The Role of Labels in Directing Children's Attention (T.B. Ward). Attention in Special Populations. Reorientation in Hyperactive and Non-Hyperactive Children: Evidence for Developmentally Immature Attention (D.A. Pearson and D.M. Lane). A Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Studying Attention Deficits (R.S. Burke). Attention and Hyperactivity (J.M. Swanson, C. Shea, K. McBurnett and F. Crinella). Autism: A Developmental Spatial Neglect Syndrome? (S.E. Bryson, J.A. Wainwright-Sharp and I.M. Smith). Psychopathy and Attention (T.J. Harpur and R.D. Hare). Attention in the Aged. Aging and the Deployment of Visual Attention (A. D'Aloisio and R. Klein). Aging, Feature Integration, and Visual Selective Attention (D.J. Plude). Developmental Changes in Attention throughout Adulthood (K.K. Ball, D.L. Roenker and J.R. Bruni). Adult Age Differences in Visual Search: the Role of Non-Attentional Processes (C.T. Scialfa). Attentional Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (P. Graf, H. Tuokko and K. Gallie). Author Index. Subject Index.

The Development of attention : research and theory

By sucking on a nonnutritive nipple in the presence of one discriminative stimulus, newborns were reinforced with a low-pass filtered tape recording of their mothers' voices. Sucking in the presence of a different discriminative stimulus was reinforced with unfiltered maternal-voice recordings. Filtered versions simulated maternal-voice sounds that were available before birth and unfiltered versions simulated maternal-voice sounds available after birth. Newborns in the control group could be reinforced with the same stimuli in the same way, but the voices were unfamiliar to them. Infants hearing their mothers' voices had no preference for either version, but infants hearing the unfamiliar voices preferred the unfiltered version. The difference in the between-groups responsiveness to the low-pass voice samples is consistent with the hypothesis that prenatal experience with low-frequency characteristics of maternal voices influences early postnatal perception of maternal voices.

Melanie J. Spence

Papers

Prenatal experience with low-frequency maternal-voice sounds influence neonatal perception of maternal voice samples