title: Age-related changes in sensitivity to native phonotactics in Japanese infants.
abstract: Japanese infants at the ages of 6, 12, and 18 months were tested on their ability to discriminate three nonsense words with different phonotactic status: canonical keetsu, noncanonical but possible keets, and noncanonical and impossible keet. The results showed that 12 and 18 months olds discriminate the keets/keetsu pair, but infants in all age groups fail to discriminate the keets/keet pair. Taken together with the findings in our previous study [Kajikawa et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 120(4), 2278-2284 (2006)], these results suggest that Japanese infants develop the perceptual sensitivity for native phonotactics after 6 months of age, and that this sensitivity is limited to canonical patterns at this early developmental stage.
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 2-4 Hikari-dai, Seika-cho, Souraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0237, Japan. mugitani@cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp
authors.forename: Ryoko
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mugitani
authors.forename: Laurel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fais
authors.forename: Sachiyo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kajikawa
authors.forename: Janet F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Werker
authors.forename: Shigeaki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Amano
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D018579:Patient Selection; D013060:Speech