Gogate Lakshmi J, Prince Christopher G, Matatyaho Dalit J
Department of Psychology, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fotr Myers FL 33965, USA.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2009 Apr;35(2):508-19. doi: 10.1037/a0013623.
To explore early lexical development, the authors examined infants' sensitivity to changes in spoken syllables and objects given different temporal relations between syllable-object pairings. In Experiment 1, they habituated 2-month-olds to 1 syllable, /tah/ or /gah/, paired with an object in synchronous (utterances coincident with object motions, N = 16) or asynchronous (utterances erratic relative to object motions, N = 16) conditions. In the asynchronous condition, the audio track preceded or succeeded the visual track by 1,200 ms. On test, infants in the synchronous condition alone detected the changes. Post hoc computational analyses confirmed lower time separation, interpreted as greater synchrony, between peaks and onsets-offsets of visual motion and audio energy in the synchronous relative to the asynchronous condition. Further examining lexical development, in Experiment 2 they habituated 2-month-olds (N = 16) to two synchronous syllable-object pairs and tested them on switch versus same pairings. Infants failed to detect the switch in the pairings. These results suggest that 2-month-olds use synchrony to detect changes in one novel syllable-object pairing at a time, providing a basis for further word mapping development.
为了探究早期词汇发展，作者研究了婴儿在不同音节与物体配对时间关系下，对口语音节和物体变化的敏感度。在实验1中，他们让2个月大的婴儿习惯1个音节，/tah/ 或 /gah/，在同步（发音与物体运动同时出现，N = 16）或异步（发音相对于物体运动不稳定，N = 16）条件下与一个物体配对。在异步条件下，音频轨道比视觉轨道提前或滞后1200毫秒。在测试中，只有处于同步条件下的婴儿检测到了变化。事后计算分析证实，相对于异步条件，同步条件下视觉运动峰值与音频能量的起始 - 偏移之间的时间间隔更小，这被解释为更高的同步性。在进一步研究词汇发展时，在实验2中，他们让2个月大的婴儿（N = 16）习惯两个同步的音节 - 物体对，并测试他们对配对切换与相同配对的反应。婴儿未能检测到配对中的切换。这些结果表明，2个月大的婴儿一次使用同步性来检测一个新的音节 - 物体配对中的变化，为进一步的单词映射发展提供了基础。
