Language experienced in utero affects vowel perception after birth: a two-country study

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Auditory Perception

Background:

• Prenatal exposure to auditory stimuli is a key factor in early language acquisition.
• Understanding the impact of in-utero language exposure on neonatal perception is crucial for developmental studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether exposure to ambient language in the womb influences phonetic perception in newborns.
• To determine if neonates exhibit prenatal learning by differentiating native and non-native vowel sounds.

Main Methods:

• A counterbalanced experiment was conducted in Sweden and the USA with 80 neonates (mean age 33 hours).
• Neonates controlled audio presentation of native (Swedish/English) and non-native vowel prototypes and variants via pacifier sucking.
• Sucking rates were used to measure attentional responses to familiar versus unfamiliar vowel sounds.

Main Results:

• Infants showed differential responses to native and non-native vowel sounds.
• Neonates exhibited significantly higher sucking rates for unfamiliar non-native vowels compared to native vowels.
• The time since birth (7-75 hours) did not influence the observed responses.

Conclusions:

• Prenatal exposure to ambient language shapes phonetic perception at birth.
• Neonates can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar vowels, indicating early language learning in the womb.
• This study provides measurable evidence of phonetic perception differences shortly after birth based on prenatal language exposure.