Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 18, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Toddlers' processing of phonological alternations: early compensation for assimilation in English and French
Katrin Skoruppa1, Nivedita Mani, Sharon Peperkamp
1University of Essex. kskor@essex.ac.uk
Abstract:
Using a picture pointing task, this study examines toddlers' processing of phonological alternations that trigger sound changes in connected speech. Three experiments investigate whether 2;5- to 3-year-old children take into account assimilations--processes by which phonological features of one sound spread to adjacent sounds--for the purpose of word recognition (e.g., in English, ten pounds can be produced as te[mp]ounds). English toddlers (n = 18) show sensitivity to native place assimilations during lexical access in Experiment 1. Likewise, French toddlers (n = 27) compensate for French voicing assimilations in Experiment 2. However, French toddlers (n = 27) do not take into account a hypothetical non-native place assimilation rule in Experiment 3, suggesting that compensation for assimilation is already language specific.
More Related Videos
09:09Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
11:09RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans
Published on: July 17, 2021
Related Concept Videos
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Language and Cognition
Lateralization
Interference and Decay
Interference occurs when competing memories hinder the retrieval of particular information. It can be classified into two types: proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive...
Components of Language
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning, also known...