Infants' memory for spoken words

Science

Volumn 277, Issue 5334, 1997, Pages 1984-1986

  Jusczyk, Peter W ^a   Hohne, Elizabeth A ^b  

^a JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b AT AND T LABS RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HEARING; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; INFANT; LANGUAGE; LEARNING; MEMORY; MEMORY CONSOLIDATION; NEUROPHYSIOLOGY; NORMAL HUMAN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SPEECH ARTICULATION; WORD RECOGNITION;

HUMANS; INFANT; LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT; MEMORY; VOCABULARY;

EID: 0030867568     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5334.1984     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. R. N. Aslin, P. W. Jusczyk, D. B. Pisoni, in Handbook of Child Psychology, D. Kuhn and R. Siegler, Eds. (Wiley, New York, in press), vol. 2; C. T. Best, in Advances in Infancy Research, C. Rovee-Collier and L. P. Lipsitt, Eds. (Ablex, Norwood, NJ, 1995), vol. 9, pp. 217-304.
2. R. N. Aslin, P. W. Jusczyk, D. B. Pisoni, in Handbook of Child Psychology, D. Kuhn and R. Siegler, Eds. (Wiley, New York, in press), vol. 2; C. T. Best, in Advances in Infancy Research, C. Rovee-Collier and L. P. Lipsitt, Eds. (Ablex, Norwood, NJ, 1995), vol. 9, pp. 217-304.
3. P. D. Eimas, E. R. Siqueland, P. Jusczyk, J. Vigorito, Science 171, 303 (1971); P. D. Eimas, Percept. Psychophys. 16, 513 (1974); ibid. 18, 341 (1975).
4. P. D. Eimas, E. R. Siqueland, P. Jusczyk, J. Vigorito, Science 171, 303 (1971); P. D. Eimas, Percept. Psychophys. 16, 513 (1974); ibid. 18, 341 (1975).
5. P. D. Eimas, E. R. Siqueland, P. Jusczyk, J. Vigorito, Science 171, 303 (1971); P. D. Eimas, Percept. Psychophys. 16, 513 (1974); ibid. 18, 341 (1975).
6. P. K. Kuhl, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 66, 1668 (1979).
7. P. D. Eimas and J. L. Miller, Science 209, 1140 (1980).
8. P. W. Jusczyk, A. Cutler, N. Redanz, Child Dev. 64, 675 (1993); P. W. Jusczyk, A. D. Friederici, J. Wessels, V. Y. Svenkerud, A. M. Jusczyk, J. Mem. Lang. 32, 402 (1993); P. K. Kuhl, K. A. Williams, F. Lacerda, K. N. Stevens, B. Lindblom, Science 255, 606 (1992); J. F. Werker and R. C. Tees, Infant Behav. Dev. 7, 49 (1984).
9. P. W. Jusczyk, A. Cutler, N. Redanz, Child Dev. 64, 675 (1993); P. W. Jusczyk, A. D. Friederici, J. Wessels, V. Y. Svenkerud, A. M. Jusczyk, J. Mem. Lang. 32, 402 (1993); P. K. Kuhl, K. A. Williams, F. Lacerda, K. N. Stevens, B. Lindblom, Science 255, 606 (1992); J. F. Werker and R. C. Tees, Infant Behav. Dev. 7, 49 (1984).
10. P. W. Jusczyk, A. Cutler, N. Redanz, Child Dev. 64, 675 (1993); P. W. Jusczyk, A. D. Friederici, J. Wessels, V. Y. Svenkerud, A. M. Jusczyk, J. Mem. Lang. 32, 402 (1993); P. K. Kuhl, K. A. Williams, F. Lacerda, K. N. Stevens, B. Lindblom, Science 255, 606 (1992); J. F. Werker and R. C. Tees, Infant Behav. Dev. 7, 49 (1984).
11. P. W. Jusczyk, A. Cutler, N. Redanz, Child Dev. 64, 675 (1993); P. W. Jusczyk, A. D. Friederici, J. Wessels, V. Y. Svenkerud, A. M. Jusczyk, J. Mem. Lang. 32, 402 (1993); P. K. Kuhl, K. A. Williams, F. Lacerda, K. N. Stevens, B. Lindblom, Science 255, 606 (1992); J. F. Werker and R. C. Tees, Infant Behav. Dev. 7, 49 (1984).
12. P. W. Jusczyk and R. N. Aslin, Cogn. Psychol. 29, 1 (1995).
13. J. R. Saffran, R. N. Aslin, E. L. Newport, Science 274, 1926 (1996).
14. J. L. Morgan, J. Mem. Lang. 35, 666 (1996).
15. P. W. Jusczyk, The Discovery of Spoken Language (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997).
16. The stories were The Lion's Bed, by Diane Redfield Massie; "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze," by Patricia Thomas; and The Little Gray Kitten, by Mary Laurence Turnbull.
17. The stories were The Lion's Bed, by Diane Redfield Massie; "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze," by Patricia Thomas; and The Little Gray Kitten, by Mary Laurence Turnbull.
18. The stories were The Lion's Bed, by Diane Redfield Massie; "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze," by Patricia Thomas; and The Little Gray Kitten, by Mary Laurence Turnbull.
19. Pilot work suggested that varying the voice of the reader and the ordering of the stories better engaged infants' attention. Accordingly, versions of all the stories were recorded on audiocassette tapes by five different female talkers (none of whom visited the homes). Each talker recorded the stories in two different orders. On a given day, an infant heard a set of stories by a single talker. While the infant was listening to the stories, a research assistant also flipped through a series of cartoon drawings that were based on the stories. The talker and story ordering were varied every day, so that across the 10 visits, each infant was exposed to all 10 talker/story-order combinations.
20. On any given day, the words from these lists had occurred in the stories an average of 13 times.
21. D. G. Kemler Nelson et al., Infant Behav. Dev. 18, 111 (1995).
22. P. Halle and B. de Boysson-Bardies, ibid. 19, 463 (1996).
23. Each infant sat on a caregiver's lap in the middle of a three-sided enclosure. On the center panel of the enclosure directly facing the infant was a green light, mounted at eye level, that could be flashed to attract the infant's attention to midline. A video camera, situated behind the panel and below the green light, recorded the test session through a peephole in order to check reliability in measuring head turns. A red light and a hidden loudspeaker were mounted on each side panel. An experimenter seated behind the center panel observed the infant through a small hole. She initiated trials and recorded the infant's looking times by operating a response box linked to a PDP 11/73 computer. Computer software was responsible for the selection and randomization of stimuli and for the timing and termination of trials.
24. A test trial began with the flashing of the green light on the center panel. When the infant oriented to the center panel, the green light was extinguished through the response box, and a red light on one of the side panels began to flash. When the infant oriented in the direction of the flashing red light, the experimenter initiated a speech sample and began recording the infant's looking time by pressing a button on the response box. Whenever the infant looked away, the experimenter pressed another button on the response box that stopped the timer. If the infant looked away for more than two consecutive seconds, the computer terminated the trial. Both the experimenter and the caregiver used foam earplugs and listened to loud masking music over sound-insulated headphones throughout the duration of the experiment to prevent them from hearing the stimulus materials. Each session began with a preparatory phase in which infants were presented with four practice trials consisting of lists of recorded words. Two of the lists included words from the stories, but not ones used in the test lists. The other two lists consisted of foils matched to the story words in the practice lists. The purpose of this phase was to familiarize the infants with the lights on the sides of the testing booth, and to ensure that they were capable of making the required orienting response. The loud-speaker from which the stimuli were emitted varied randomly from trial to trial. After the preparatory phase, the test phase began and continued until an infant completed all 12 test trials. For a given infant, the test and practice lists were always produced by the same talker (one of the five who had produced the stories). Thus, three of the infants were tested with each of the five voices.
25. That is, the times that infants spent looking away from the light on a trial were subtracted from the total trial duration to obtain this measure.
26. To explore further whether the differences in listening preferences between the two groups of infants were attributable to prior experience with the stories, the data from the two groups of infants were combined for a 2 (test group) x 2 (list type) analysis of variance. Only the interaction between the test group and list type was significant [F(1, 28) = 5.60, P < 0.03], confirming that the preference for the story-word lists occurred only when infants had had prior exposure to the stories.
27. P. D. Eimas and P. C. Quinn, Child Dev. 65, 903 (1994); J. M. Mandler and L. McDonough, Cogn. Dev. 8, 291 (1993); P. C. Quinn, P. D. Eimas, S. L. Rosenkrantz, Perception 22, 463 (1993).
28. P. D. Eimas and P. C. Quinn, Child Dev. 65, 903 (1994); J. M. Mandler and L. McDonough, Cogn. Dev. 8, 291 (1993); P. C. Quinn, P. D. Eimas, S. L. Rosenkrantz, Perception 22, 463 (1993).
29. P. D. Eimas and P. C. Quinn, Child Dev. 65, 903 (1994); J. M. Mandler and L. McDonough, Cogn. Dev. 8, 291 (1993); P. C. Quinn, P. D. Eimas, S. L. Rosenkrantz, Perception 22, 463 (1993).
30. R. Baillargeon and J. DeVos, Child Dev. 62, 1227 (1991); E. Spelke, Cognition 50, 431 (1994); _, K. Breinlinger, J. Macomber, K. Jacobson, Psychol. Rev. 99, 605 (1992).
31. R. Baillargeon and J. DeVos, Child Dev. 62, 1227 (1991); E. Spelke, Cognition 50, 431 (1994); _, K. Breinlinger, J. Macomber, K. Jacobson, Psychol. Rev. 99, 605 (1992).
32. R. Baillargeon and J. DeVos, Child Dev. 62, 1227 (1991); E. Spelke, Cognition 50, 431 (1994); _, K. Breinlinger, J. Macomber, K. Jacobson, Psychol. Rev. 99, 605 (1992).
33. P. Marler, Dev. Psychobiol. 23, 557 (1990).
34. Supported by a research grant from NIH to P.W.J. (HD15795). We thank A. M. Jusczyk, N. Redanz, D. Dombrowski, B. Boyle, and S. Elsis for their help in recruiting and testing participants and M. Brent, P. Smolensky, G. Ball, R. Tincoff, T. Nazzi, D. Houston, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that they made on early versions of the manuscript. The parents of all infant participants gave informed consent.