Department of Psychology, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL 33965, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2010 Mar;105(3):178-97. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2009.10.007. Epub 2009 Dec 11.
The role of temporal synchrony and syllable distinctiveness in preverbal infants' learning of word-object relations was investigated. In Experiment 1, 7- and 8-month-olds (N=64) were habituated under conditions where two similar-sounding syllables, /tah/ and /gah/, were spoken simultaneously with the motions of one of two sets of objects (synchronous) or out of phase with the motions (asynchronous). On test trials, 8-month-olds, but not 7-month-olds, showed learning of the relations in the synchronous condition but not in the asynchronous condition. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, following habituation to one of the synchronous syllable-object pairs, 7-month-olds (n=8) discriminated the syllables and the objects. In Experiment 3, following habituation to two distinct syllables, /tah/-/gih/ or /gah/-/tih/, paired with identical objects, 7-month-olds (n=40) showed learning of the relations, again only in the synchronous condition. Thus, synchrony, which mothers naturally provide between words and object motions, facilitated the mapping onto objects of similar-sounding syllables at 8months of age and distinct syllables at 7months of age. These findings suggest an interaction between infants' synchrony and syllable distinctiveness perception during early word mapping development.
本研究旨在探讨时间同步性和音节独特性在婴儿前语言阶段学习词物关系中的作用。实验 1 中，7 月龄和 8 月龄婴儿（N=64）在两种条件下进行习惯化：两种相似发音的音节 /tah/ 和 /gah/ 与一组两个物体的运动同时出现（同步条件）或不同步出现（异步条件）。在测试阶段，只有 8 月龄婴儿而非 7 月龄婴儿在同步条件下表现出对关系的学习，但在异步条件下则没有。此外，在实验 2 中，在对一个同步音节-物体对进行习惯化后，7 月龄婴儿（n=8）对音节和物体进行了区分。在实验 3 中，在对两个不同的音节 /tah/-/gih/ 或 /gah/-/tih/ 与相同的物体进行习惯化后，7 月龄婴儿（n=40）仅在同步条件下表现出对关系的学习。因此，在 8 个月大时，母亲在单词和物体运动之间自然提供的同步性促进了相似发音音节与物体的映射，而在 7 个月大时，音节的独特性促进了这种映射。这些发现表明，在早期单词映射发展过程中，婴儿的同步性和音节独特性感知之间存在相互作用。
