Swingley Daniel
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Walnut St. 302C, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
J Mem Lang. 2009 Feb;60(2):252. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2008.11.003.
Previous tests of toddlers' phonological knowledge of familiar words using word recognition tasks have examined syllable onsets but not word-final consonants (codas). However, there are good reasons to suppose that children's knowledge of coda consonants might be less complete than their knowledge of onset consonants. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined 14- to 21-month-old children's knowledge of the phonological forms of familiar words by measuring their comprehension of correctly-pronounced and mispronounced instances of those words using a visual fixation task. Mispronunciations substituted onset or coda consonants. Adults were tested in the same task for comparison with children. Children and adults fixated named targets more upon hearing correct pronunciations than upon hearing mispronunciations, whether those mispronunciations involved the word's initial or final consonant. In addition, detailed analysis of the timing of adults' and children's eye movements provided clear evidence for incremental interpretation of the speech signal. Children's responses were slower and less accurate overall, but children and adults showed nearly identical temporal effects of the placement of phonological substitutions. The results demonstrate accurate encoding of consonants even in words children cannot yet say.
以往使用单词识别任务对幼儿熟悉单词的语音知识进行的测试，考察了音节开头部分，但未涉及单词末尾的辅音（韵尾）。然而，有充分理由推测，儿童对韵尾辅音的知识可能不如对音节开头辅音的知识完整。为了验证这一假设，本研究通过使用视觉注视任务测量14至21个月大儿童对熟悉单词正确发音和错误发音的理解，考察了他们对熟悉单词语音形式的知识。错误发音替换了音节开头或韵尾的辅音。对成年人进行了相同任务的测试，以便与儿童进行比较。无论是听到正确发音还是错误发音，儿童和成年人在听到正确发音时比听到错误发音时更多地注视被命名的目标，无论这些错误发音涉及单词的开头还是末尾辅音。此外，对成年人与儿童眼动时间的详细分析为语音信号的渐进解释提供了明确证据。儿童的反应总体上较慢且准确性较低，但儿童和成年人在语音替换位置上表现出几乎相同的时间效应。结果表明，即使是儿童还不会说的单词，他们也能准确编码其中的辅音。
