title: The influence of babbling patterns on the processing of speech.
abstract: This study compared the preference of 27 British English- and 26 Welsh-learning infants for nonwords featuring consonants that occur with equal frequency in the input but that are produced either with equal frequency (Welsh) or with differing frequency (British English) in infant vocalizations. For the English infants a significant difference in looking times was related to the extent of production of the nonword consonants. The Welsh infants, who showed no production preference for either consonant, exhibited no such influence of production patterns on their response to the nonwords. The results are consistent with a previous study that suggested that pre-linguistic babbling helps shape the processing of input speech, serving as an articulatory filter that selectively makes production patterns more salient in the input.
authors.affiliation: Communication Sciences and Disorders, James Madison University, MSC #4304, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, USA. Electronic address: depaolra@jmu.edu.
authors.forename: Rory A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: DePaolis
authors.forename: Marilyn M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Vihman
authors.forename: Satsuki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013068:Speech Production Measurement
keywords: Action–perception link; Babble; Speech perception; Speech production; The articulatory filter; The headturn preference paradigm