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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 17, 2026

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Published on: February 8, 2019

Infants generalize representations of statistically segmented words.

Katharine Graf Estes¹

¹Department of Psychology, University of California Davis Davis, CA, USA.

Frontiers in Psychology

|November 1, 2012

Summary

Infants can learn words despite changes in voice, demonstrating robust statistical learning. This research shows early language acquisition is adaptable to acoustic variations in speech.

Keywords:

generalization language acquisition speech perception statistical learning word learning word segmentation

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Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Developmental Psychology
Linguistics

Background:

Infants learning language must overcome acoustic variations in speech, such as different voices or emotional tones.
Previous studies on statistical learning in infants did not explore how surface-level variations impact word recognition.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the robustness of statistical learning in infants when faced with acoustic variations.
To determine if infants can generalize word segmentation and learning across changes in speaker voice.

Main Methods:

Two experiments were conducted using tasks tailored to different developmental stages (11-month-olds and 17-month-olds).
Experiment 1 used word segmentation tasks with a voice change between familiarization and testing.
Experiment 2 assessed generalization of statistical learning for word-referent association despite voice variation.

Main Results:

11-month-olds demonstrated the ability to segment words across a change in speaker voice, though it was more challenging.
17-month-olds successfully generalized statistically learned words to new referents even with a voice change.
Infants' learning patterns suggest they form representations of syllable sequences, enabling statistical learning.

Conclusions:

Infants' statistical learning is robust and not limited by perceptual constraints.
Early word learning can accommodate naturalistic acoustic variations in speech, indicating adaptive learning mechanisms.