Syllabic pitch perception in 2- to 3-month-old infants.
The pitch patterns present in speech addressed to infants may play an important role in perceptual processing by infants. In this study, the high-amplitude sucking procedure was used to assess discrimination by 2- to 3-month-old infants of rising versus falling pitch patterns in 400-msec synthetic [ra] and [la] tokens. The syllables' intonation contour was modeled on infant-directed speech, and covered a range characteristic of an adult female speaker (180-300 Hz). Group data indicated that the 2- to 3-month-old infants discriminated the pitch contour for both stimuli. Results are discussed with reference to previous studies of syllabic pitch perception.
Karzon
R G
RG
Nicholas
J G
JG
D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010700:Phonetics; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013067:Speech Perception