PSY 357 Exam 3 Questions and Correct
Answers
Be able to identify some of the basic auditory abilities of fetuses in the womb. What
kinds of information are they learning about language in the womb?
The babies have a preference for the mother's voice rather than other female voices. They
suckle harder when they hear their mother's voices.
Be able to identify the types of methods by which the language processing abilities of
fetuses have been investigated—both in and out of the womb.
Read poems, and had them recorded. Played recording into the womb and measured fetus's
response to the recordings which indicated that the fetus recognize its mother's' voice. Done
by measuring heart rate, increase in heart rate when mother's voice is played. Heart rate
increases with familiar rhyme compared to unfamiliar rhyme.
Be able to identify the age at which Mehler and colleagues (1988) showed that infants
can distinguish intonational contours in their maternal language (such as French) and
those in another language (such as Russian), and understand the implications of this
finding.
Done on newborn infants, they were exposed to french in the womb. They found that the
sucking rate went down as they played them french (got habituated to it). They then played
them Russian and the sucking rate increased. This means that babies could detect the
difference at 4 days old between french and Russian. Not able to tell the difference, but can
notice a difference in prosody
,What exactly are fetuses getting from language?
Important parts of speech sounds include frequencies up to 4000 Hz. telephones restrict that
to under 3000 Hz. But infants in the womb only hear up to 1000 Hz
They are not hearing speech sounds per se
Rather the rhythms of language, voices rising and falling, and stress patterns (prosody)
Adults talk in a simplified way with children (child-directed speech CDS, mortherese,
or baby talk):
More pauses
Shorter sentences
More redundancy
Slower
Exaggerated prosody
High pitch
Why? Infants prefer it more and it keeps and directs attention (to new and important words).
Encourages participation in turn-like conversations.
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 1)
Children are equipped with categorical perception (for example /b/ and /p/), sucking increases
when a change in the category is presented.
Seems to begin with the ability to detect all differences between phonemes, lost over the 1st
, year of development as perceptual abilities mature to master their language. Can be seen with
Japanese speakers, can notice the difference between /r/ and /l/ up until age 1.
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 2)
Has baby turn head when sound changes, a young infant can hear the changes
In all three cases, perceivers lose the dual-phoneme distinction after one year because their
language gives them experience in dealing with the sounds within those categories- a
different experience.
Evidence for this being from experience is found from the Zulu click consonants.
Zulu click consonants are not similar to English sounds at all
Older English speaking infants and adults can tell Zulu click constants apart since we have no
experience to expand/ erase categorical boundaries
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 3)
The brain is programmed to adjust to the sounds of our language during the first year of life.
The purpose of categorical perception is to simplify the complexity of language sounds as
much as possible- this process simplifies sound categories towards the end.
Answers
Be able to identify some of the basic auditory abilities of fetuses in the womb. What
kinds of information are they learning about language in the womb?
The babies have a preference for the mother's voice rather than other female voices. They
suckle harder when they hear their mother's voices.
Be able to identify the types of methods by which the language processing abilities of
fetuses have been investigated—both in and out of the womb.
Read poems, and had them recorded. Played recording into the womb and measured fetus's
response to the recordings which indicated that the fetus recognize its mother's' voice. Done
by measuring heart rate, increase in heart rate when mother's voice is played. Heart rate
increases with familiar rhyme compared to unfamiliar rhyme.
Be able to identify the age at which Mehler and colleagues (1988) showed that infants
can distinguish intonational contours in their maternal language (such as French) and
those in another language (such as Russian), and understand the implications of this
finding.
Done on newborn infants, they were exposed to french in the womb. They found that the
sucking rate went down as they played them french (got habituated to it). They then played
them Russian and the sucking rate increased. This means that babies could detect the
difference at 4 days old between french and Russian. Not able to tell the difference, but can
notice a difference in prosody
,What exactly are fetuses getting from language?
Important parts of speech sounds include frequencies up to 4000 Hz. telephones restrict that
to under 3000 Hz. But infants in the womb only hear up to 1000 Hz
They are not hearing speech sounds per se
Rather the rhythms of language, voices rising and falling, and stress patterns (prosody)
Adults talk in a simplified way with children (child-directed speech CDS, mortherese,
or baby talk):
More pauses
Shorter sentences
More redundancy
Slower
Exaggerated prosody
High pitch
Why? Infants prefer it more and it keeps and directs attention (to new and important words).
Encourages participation in turn-like conversations.
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 1)
Children are equipped with categorical perception (for example /b/ and /p/), sucking increases
when a change in the category is presented.
Seems to begin with the ability to detect all differences between phonemes, lost over the 1st
, year of development as perceptual abilities mature to master their language. Can be seen with
Japanese speakers, can notice the difference between /r/ and /l/ up until age 1.
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 2)
Has baby turn head when sound changes, a young infant can hear the changes
In all three cases, perceivers lose the dual-phoneme distinction after one year because their
language gives them experience in dealing with the sounds within those categories- a
different experience.
Evidence for this being from experience is found from the Zulu click consonants.
Zulu click consonants are not similar to English sounds at all
Older English speaking infants and adults can tell Zulu click constants apart since we have no
experience to expand/ erase categorical boundaries
Given a list of babies and adults of different languages and ages, be able to apply
findings from phoneme discrimination abilities to choose the baby/adult that would or
would not be able to detect differences between certain phonemes of a given language.
_Be familiar with the research technique devised by Janet Werker to examine these
abilities in infants (Part 3)
The brain is programmed to adjust to the sounds of our language during the first year of life.
The purpose of categorical perception is to simplify the complexity of language sounds as
much as possible- this process simplifies sound categories towards the end.
