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Cognitive control factors in speech perception at 11 months
Barbara T Conboy1, Jessica A Sommerville, Patricia K Kuhl
1Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98103, USA. bconboy@u.washington.edu
Developmental Psychology
|September 17, 2008
Summary
Infant speech perception development links native language skills to vocabulary growth. Nonnative speech discrimination relies on inhibitory control, suggesting distinct developmental pathways for language acquisition.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Infant speech perception refines to native language features within the first year.
- Mechanisms linking speech perception, vocabulary, and cognitive control remain unclear.
- Prior studies suggest associations between nonnative speech discrimination and cognitive tasks, and native speech perception and vocabulary.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationships between native and nonnative speech sound discrimination, cognitive control, and vocabulary development in 11-month-old infants.
- To determine if domain-general cognitive abilities influence early language acquisition.
- To clarify the specific roles of attention, inhibitory control, and vocabulary in speech perception development.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a conditioned head-turn test for native and nonnative speech sound discrimination.
- Employed nonlinguistic object-retrieval tasks assessing attention and inhibitory control.
- Administered the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory for vocabulary assessment.
Main Results:
- Native speech discrimination positively correlated with receptive vocabulary size.
- Nonnative speech discrimination negatively correlated with cognitive control scores (attention and inhibitory control).
- Neither speech discrimination nor vocabulary size correlated with general cognitive measures.
Conclusions:
- Inhibitory control may facilitate the ability to filter out irrelevant speech variations, aiding native language attunement.
- Native language speech perception development is specifically linked to vocabulary growth.
- These findings suggest distinct cognitive mechanisms underpin native versus nonnative speech processing in infants.
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