title: Identification of novel phonetic segments by children, adolescents and adults.
abstract: The ability of children, adolescents and adults to employ completely novel phonetic information was examined. Three groups of subjects were tested for their ability to identify minimal pairs contrasting voiced and implosive stops in syllable-initial position. Children's performance on this task was significantly superior to both adolescent and adult performance.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010699:Phonation; D014831:Voice