The tuning of human neonates' preference for speech.
Human neonates prefer listening to speech compared to many nonspeech sounds, suggesting that humans are born with a bias for speech. However, neonates' preference may derive from properties of speech that are not unique but instead are shared with the vocalizations of other species. To test this, thirty neonates and sixteen 3-month-olds were presented with nonsense speech and rhesus monkey vocalizations. Neonates showed no preference for speech over rhesus vocalizations but showed a preference for both these sounds over synthetic sounds. In contrast, 3-month-olds preferred speech to rhesus vocalizations. Neonates' initial biases minimally include speech and monkey vocalizations. These listening preferences are sharpened over 3 months, yielding a species-specific preference for speech, paralleling findings on infant face perception.
Vouloumanos
Athena
A
Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. athena.vouloumanos@nyu.edu
Hauser
Marc D
MD
Werker
Janet F
JF
Martin
Alia
A
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn / Q000523:psychology*; D007804:Language Development; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception; D014828:Vocalization, Animal