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Updated: Jul 5, 2026
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Social feedback to infants' babbling facilitates rapid phonological learning
Michael H Goldstein1, Jennifer A Schwade
1Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. mhg26@cornell.edu
Psychological Science
|May 10, 2008
Summary
Caregivers
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Speech Production
Background:
- Prelinguistic vocalizations in infants are often overlooked in communicative development research.
- Limited understanding of the mechanisms driving changes in infant vocal production.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of caregiver speech in guiding infant prelinguistic vocal development.
- To determine if contingent vocal feedback influences the incorporation of phonological patterns.
Main Methods:
- Mothers of 9.5-month-old infants provided vocal models contingent or noncontingent to infant babbling.
- Analysis of infant vocalizations following different feedback conditions.
Main Results:
- Infants receiving contingent feedback rapidly altered their babbling, incorporating phonological patterns from maternal speech.
- Infants receiving noncontingent feedback showed no significant changes in babbling patterns.
- Learned vocalizations exhibited phonological similarity but not phonetic identity with maternal speech.
Conclusions:
- Caregiver speech provides essential real-time guidance for infant vocal development.
- Prelinguistic infants learn new vocal forms through pattern discovery and generalization from contingent maternal speech.
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