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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 8, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Visual Sonority Modulates Infants' Attraction to Sign Language.

Adam Stone¹, Laura-Ann Petitto^2,3,4, Rain Bosworth¹

¹Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA.

Language Learning and Development : the Official Journal of the Society for Language Development

|September 21, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Infants

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Area of Science:

Developmental psychology
Linguistics
Cognitive neuroscience

Background:

The infant brain may be predisposed to identify perceptually salient cues common to both signed and spoken languages.
Sonority has been proposed as a potential language acquisition cue in spoken language acquisition.
Understanding early language acquisition universals across modalities is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate infant sensitivity to sonority cues in visual language (fingerspelling).
To explore developmental changes in this sensitivity between 6 and 12 months of age.
To determine if sonority-based perception is a modality-independent feature of early language learning.

Main Methods:

Utilized a preferential looking paradigm with an infrared eye tracker.
Exposed hearing infants (6- and 12-month-olds) with no sign language experience to fingerspelling stimuli.
Stimuli varied in sonority values (high/well-formed vs. low/ill-formed), relevant to syllabic structure.

Main Results:

6-month-olds showed a significant looking preference for high sonority (well-formed) fingerspelling.
12-month-olds did not show a significant preference between high and low sonority fingerspelling.
Infants demonstrated a strong preference in a control condition, indicating attentional capacity.

Conclusions:

Infants possess an innate sensitivity to sonority-based contrastive cues in language structure.
This sensitivity undergoes perceptual narrowing, becoming less pronounced by 12 months.
Findings suggest modality-independent universals in early language acquisition, highlighting core linguistic principles.