Announcements Switching lecture schedule: Move Pragmatics Unit to AFTER Bilingualism Unit to accommodate guest speaker on Nov. 27th (Tuesday) If we have time after lecture today, we’ll discuss some posted questions.

Psy1302 Psychology of Language Language Acquisition I Lecture 17

Language Acquisition [The acquisition of language] is doubtless the greatest intellectual feat any one of us is ever required to perform. (L. Bloomfield, Language, 1933, p. 29)

Reading Assignment Fisher & Gleitman (2002) I. Outline of the task of language learning II. Where language learning begins Categorization of Speech Sounds Segmentation of Spoken Word Role of Sound in Syntactic Analysis Distributional Analysis and Discovery of Syntax II. Meanings Primitive Categories of Experience Compositional Meaning Interactions between linguistic and conceptual categories IV. Forms to meaning Mapping problem Concrete words first Old words make new words easier to learn V. Where learning ends

Eimas et al.’s Study High Amplitude Sucking Procedure Review: Where we left off for lectures on Speech Perception Eimas et al.’s Study High Amplitude Sucking Procedure What did this paradigm tell us about infants’ ability to discriminate speech sounds in the world’s languages?

Werker et al.’s Studies Headturn Procedure Review: Where we left off for lectures on Speech Perception Werker et al.’s Studies Headturn Procedure What did this paradigm tell us about when children lose discrimination ability of non-native phonemes

A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones How do children learn which phonetic sounds are the phonemes in their language? For example (minimal pairs): ‘bear” and “pear” or “rent” and “lent” are two different words? What information could children use to learn the phonemes of their native language???

One Possibility: Semantic Learning A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones One Possibility: Semantic Learning Learning word meanings drives phonological reorganization Children notice changing some features changes meaning in some cases /tip/ vs. /dip/ They also notice changing some features does not change meaning in some cases /tip/ vs. /tip/ (Hindi contrast) ,

One Possibility: Semantic Learning A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones One Possibility: Semantic Learning Learning word meanings drives phonological reorganization For reorganization to work, requires: Noticing minimal pairs and meaning differences Learning many words Problem: 10 months-old children don’t know that many words!

Review Voice Onset Time Production of words with /d/ or /t/ have different VOT

Dutch Easter Armenian Spanish Thai Hungarian Korean Tamil Hindi Cantonese Marathi English

Another Possibility: Distributional Learning A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Another Possibility: Distributional Learning Distributional characteristics of input (i.e. speech of native speakers) provide cues to the phonemic categories E.g. 2 clusters

Another Possibility: Distributional Learning A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Another Possibility: Distributional Learning 1 cluster vs. 2 clusters d t

Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) Created synthetic sounds ranging from [da] to [ta].

Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) Familiarized infants to one of two sets Bimodal Set: Sounds on the ends near [da] and [ta]. Unimodal Set: Sounds in the middle. Test preference for: 3 6 3 6… (Alternating) vs. 3 3 3 3… (Non-alternating) Stimuli

Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Maye, Werker, & Gerken (2002) (tested 6 & 8 months-old) 3 6 3 6 … 3 3 3 3 = = < < Infants trained on the Bimodal had a novelty preference for non-alternating trials. Infants trained on the Unimodal did not prefer/dis-prefer one over the other.

Summary Infant’s initial lexicon is non-existent to small. A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Summary Infant’s initial lexicon is non-existent to small. Makes it difficult to attribute lexical knowledge as source of initial phonological reorganization Perhaps distributional information may be a first step into initial phonological reorganization Learning the phonemes of one’s language could then help learn words & word meanings… Big Q: how do you know which cues to analyze? E.g. VOT as opposed to some other cues?

Posting @ Class Discussion Forum (10/12) A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression Posting @ Class Discussion Forum (10/12) Minimal Pairs and Word Learning: Notice anything about the ages tested in these papers and when the Werker paper says that sensitivity to non-native phones disappears? Want to comment? Monolingual: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071001172817.htm Bilingual: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070928092050.htm

The “Switch” Task Habituation Phase Test Phase Same Switch A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression The “Switch” Task Habituation Phase Test Phase Same Switch “lif” “neem” “lif” “neem” Werker, Cohen, Lloyd, Casasola, & Stager, Dev Psych, 1998

The “Switch” Task Results A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression The “Switch” Task Results Werker, Cohen, Lloyd, Casasola, & Stager, Dev. Psych. 1998

Switch task with Minimal Pairs A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression Switch task with Minimal Pairs Habituation Phase Test Phase Same Switch “bih” “dih” “bih” “dih” Stager & Werker, Nature, 1997

Switch Task, Minimal Pairs Result A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression Switch Task, Minimal Pairs Result Stager & Werker, Nature, 1997, Werker, et al, Infancy, 2002; Pater, et al, Language, 2004

Posting @ Class Discussion Forum (10/12) A New Puzzle: Learning Native Phones Digression Posting @ Class Discussion Forum (10/12) Minimal Pairs and Word Learning: Notice anything about the ages tested in these papers and when the Werker paper says that sensitivity to non-native phones disappears? Want to comment? Monolingual: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071001172817.htm Bilingual: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070928092050.htm

Word segmentation problem Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Word segmentation problem How do we as adults know where the word boundaries are located? We make use of lexical knowledge.

Word segmentation problem Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Word segmentation problem What about infants who have none or few words in their lexicon?

Word Segmentation Problem Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Word Segmentation Problem Infants need to extract words from fluent speech in order to build a lexicon. How??? Cues recruited for segmentations: Rhythmic cues Metrical Stress Phonotactic cues Context sensitive allophonic cues Statistical distributional properties Transitional Probabilities of Syllables Allophonic cues: /vt/ rare within word, more common across words /d/ in red ice and dice different

Rhythmic Cues Stress Pattern in English: Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Rhythmic Cues Stress Pattern in English: Cutler & Norris (1988): 95% of disyllabic English words (actually heard) are Strong-Weak. Common (Strong-Weak Stress): Button, Table Rare (Weak-Strong Stress): Guitar, Surprise Do (English) infants take strong-weak as cue for segmentation?

Experimental setup http://psych.rice.edu/mmtbn/language/sPerception/infantHeadturn_h.html

Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) 7.5 & 10 month-old infants familiarized to Word, and test preference for passage w/ over passage w/o target word Familiarized to Word in Passage, and test preference for target word over another (novel) word

Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) 7.5 & 10 month-old infants familiarized to Strong-Weak Word: Kingdom… Kingdom… Kingdom… Test on passages. Compare preference for passages w/ or w/o target word. Kingdom passage Your kingdom is in a faraway place. The prince used to sail to that kingdom when he came home from school. One day he saw a ghost in this old kingdom… Hamlet passage Your hamlet lies just over the hill. Far away from here near the sea is an old hamlet. People from the hamlet like to fish. Another hamlet is in the country…

Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) 7.5 & 10 month-old infants familiarized to Strong-Weak Word in passage: Your kingdom is in a … Test on words. Compare preference of target word and another word Kingdom passage Your kingdom is in a faraway place. The prince used to sail to that kingdom when he came home from school. One day he saw a ghost in this old kingdom… Hamlet passage Your hamlet lies just over the hill. Far away from here near the sea is an old hamlet. People from the hamlet like to fish. Another hamlet is in the country…

7.5 months hear kingdom  parse as kingdom and not king Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern 7.5 months S/W (strong-weak): kingdom king king king king hear kingdom  parse as kingdom and not king

Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) 7.5 & 10 month-old infants familiarized to Weak-Strong: Guitar… Guitar… Guitar… Test on passages. Compare preference for passages w/ or w/o target word. Guitar passage The man put away his old guitar. Your guitar is in the studio. That red guitar is brand new. The pink guitar is mine…. Device passage Your device can do a lot. Her device only fixes things. My new red device makes ice cream. The pink device sews clothes….

7.5 months hear “guitar”  parse as tar and not guitar Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern 7.5 months W/S (weak-strong): guitar tar tar guitar is tar guitar is taris hear “guitar”  parse as tar and not guitar hear “guitar is”  parse as taris and not guitar or tar

10 months Older children not as dependent on strong-weak strategy. Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern 10 months W/S (weak-strong): guitar tar guitar is taris guitar is Older children not as dependent on strong-weak strategy. hear “guitar”  parse as guitar

Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues Jusczyk, Houston & Newsome (1999) Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern For SW: Both 7.5 & 10 month-olds gave the correct parse For WS: Only the 10 month-olds gave the correct parse Young (English-learning) infants rely on SW pattern for segmenting speech

Phonotactics Mattys & Jusczyk (2001) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Phonotactic Cues Phonotactics Mattys & Jusczyk (2001) Headturn Preference Procedure again 9 mos. familiarized to passage with 1 of 2 novel words Gaffe Tove The novel words were either flanked by good between-word cues or bad between-word cues. (e.g. /vt/ is rare within a word, but more common across words) Test word in isolation (e.g. gaffe, gaffe, gaffe…)

Phonotactics Mattys & Jusczyk (2001) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Rhythmic Cues – stress pattern Phonotactics Mattys & Jusczyk (2001) gaffe tove Words flanked by good between-word cues or bad between-word cues. C CVC C Novel word Offset of Another word Onset of Another word

Statistical Learning Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Statistical Learning Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996) Transitional Probabilities of Syllables Likelihood of a syllable (B) following another (A) Probability of B given A freq AB freq A pr B|A = Online demonstration of statistical analysis Debate on whether this aspect of language is species-specific – relevant to issues of language as a domain-specific or domain general phenomenon. A B

PRE TTY BA BY Statistical Learning Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Statistical Learning Syllable Transitional Probabilities High likelihood High likelihood PRE TTY BA BY Low likelihood Continuations within words are systematic Continuations between words are arbitrary

Transitional probabilities Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Transitional probabilities PRETTY BABY (freq) pretty (freq) pre .80 versus (freq) tyba (freq) ty .0002

Statistical Learning Demo http://whyfiles.org/058language/images/baby_stream.aiff

tokibugikobagopilatipolutokibu gopilatipolutokibugikobagopila gikobatokibugopilatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolugopilatipolu tokibugopilatipolutokibugopila tipolutokibugopilagikobatipolu tokibugopilagikobatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolutokibugikoba gopilatipolugikobatokibugopila

tokibugikobagopilatipolutokibu gopilatipolutokibugikobagopila gikobatokibugopilatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolugopilatipolu tokibugopilatipolutokibugopila tipolutokibugopilagikobatipolu tokibugopilagikobatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolutokibugikoba gopilatipolugikobatokibugopila

Statistical Learning Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996) Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Statistical Learning Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996) Headturn preference paradigm Familiarization: 2 minute exposure to an artificial language 4 3 syllable words: tokibu, gopila, gikoba, tipolu Synthesized speech. Only statistical cues to word boundaries No prosodic information, coarticulation cues Tested isolated word and part-word (sequences spanning word boundaries)

tokibugikobagopilatipolutokibu gopilatipolutokibugikobagopila gikobatokibugopilatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolugopilatipolu tokibugopilatipolutokibugopila tipolutokibugopilagikobatipolu tokibugopilagikobatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolutokibugikoba gopilatipolugikobatokibugopila

tokibugikobagopilatipolutokibu gopilatipolutokibugikobagopila gikobatokibugopilatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolugopilatipolu tokibugopilatipolutokibugopila tipolutokibugopilagikobatipolu tokibugopilagikobatipolugikoba tipolugikobatipolutokibugikoba gopilatipolugikobatokibugopila

TO KI BU GI KO BA Test: TOKIBU vs. BUGIKO Word Part Word Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Test: TOKIBU vs. BUGIKO Word Part Word TO KI BU GI KO BA

Results Words Part-words * Looking times (sec) 8 6 4 2 Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Syllable Transitional Probabilities Results Looking times (sec) 2 4 6 8 Words Part-words * Infants can use statistical cues to find word boundaries

Word Segmentation Problem Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Word Segmentation Problem Infants need to extract words from fluent speech in order to build a lexicon. Considerable evidence that this ability develops in infants between 7.5-10.5 months of age. Cues recruited for segmentations: Rhythmic cues Metrical Stress Phonotactic cues Context sensitive allophonic cues Statistical distributional properties Transitional Probabilities of Syllables Allophonic cues: /vt/ rare within word, more common across words /d/ in red ice and dice different

Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Infants detect and make use of a variety of probabilistic cues to determine word boundaries They do so to construct a lexicon, and make use of the cues even before attaching meanings to the words Which cues are more potent? Reliance on one cue over another will depend on: The language being learned Sophistication of the learner

Is there long-term retention of these extracted sound patterns Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Is there long-term retention of these extracted sound patterns Houston, Jusczyk and Tager (1998) Familiarized 7.5 mo. old infants with a pair of words and tested them on passages with and without familiarized words after 24 hours. Results: No difference b/w the infants tested with delay and without delay.

Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Continued.. Jusczyk and Hohne (1997):8 month old infants heard audio versions of 3 stories for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, infants were tested on words and foils (matching phonetic characteristics and freq. of occurrence of words). Infants who had heard the stories listened longer to the story words than the foils. Control group: No preference

Old Puzzle, But Yet Another Issue: Word Segmentation Conclusion Infants store information about sound patterns of lexical items even before they attach meaning to these words.

Reading Assignment Fisher & Gleitman (2002) I. Outline of the task of language learning II. Where language learning begins Categorization of Speech Sounds Segmentation of Spoken Word Role of Sound in Syntactic Analysis Distributional Analysis and Discovery of Syntax II. Meanings Primitive Categories of Experience Compositional Meaning Interactions between linguistic and conceptual categories IV. Forms to meaning Mapping problem Concrete words first Old words make new words easier to learn V. Where learning ends

Richie’s Posting @ Class Discussion Forum What types of explanations have been offered for why languages sound so different? Similarly, what do psycholinguists predict about the future of languages? Do they see a convergence towards one language as technology makes geographical borders increasingly non-existent? What does the future of language hold for us?

Courtney’s Posting @ Class Discussion Forum If, when we speak, we produce sentences through the three steps we discussed in lecture on Tuesday, how are those steps manipulated, or how are they upheld, when we "speak" to ourselves? How do we go from the semantic to the articulatory stage when we are reading aloud? I know I've made incorrect "articulations," or at least word assumptions when reading. Does this mean that when we do make mistakes in speaking (through exchanges, anticipation, etc.) that the error occurs not in the physical articulation but in the mental processing stage?