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Related Concept Videos

Language Development01:22

Language Development

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Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
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The Nativist Approach01:21

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The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to...
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Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development01:14

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The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
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When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.
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Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
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Auditory Perception

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The auditory system is essential for sound perception, utilizing various critical structures. When sound waves enter the outer ear, they travel through the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. These vibrations are then transmitted to the middle ear, where three tiny bones – the malleus, incus, and stapes – amplify the sound. This amplification is crucial, as it ensures that the sound vibrations are strong enough to be conveyed to the inner ear. These vibrations then reach the...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

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Do Infants Really Learn Phonetic Categories?

Naomi H Feldman1, Sharon Goldwater2, Emmanuel Dupoux3

  • 1Department of Linguistics and UMIACS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.

Open Mind : Discoveries in Cognitive Science
|January 13, 2022
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Infants learn speech perception by developing a representational space, not by forming phonetic categories. This challenges traditional views of early language acquisition and infant speech perception development.

Keywords:
computational modelinglanguage acquisitionrepresentation learningspeech perception

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Infants' perception of speech sound contrasts changes early in life.
  • This change is often explained by the development of phonetic category knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To critically examine the hypothesis that infants' speech perception changes due to phonetic category knowledge.
  • To propose an alternative model for understanding early speech perception development.

Main Methods:

  • Critical review of existing hypotheses on infant speech perception.
  • Theoretical proposal of an alternative account based on perceptual space learning.

Main Results:

  • Little direct evidence supports the notion of phonetic category knowledge in infancy.
  • An alternative model suggests infants learn a perceptual space for speech without forming categories.

Conclusions:

  • The development of speech perception in infants may not rely on phonetic category formation.
  • This revised understanding has significant implications for theories of early language acquisition.