Ito Kiwako, Bibyk Sarah A, Wagner Laura, Speer Shari R
Ohio State University.
University of Rochester.
J Child Lang. 2014 Jan;41(1):84-110. doi: 10.1017/S0305000912000554. Epub 2012 Dec 20.
Both off-line and on-line comprehension studies suggest not only toddlers and preschoolers, but also older school-age children have trouble interpreting contrast-marking pitch prominence. To test whether children achieve adult-like proficiency in processing contrast-marking prosody during school years, an eye-tracking experiment examined the effect of accent on referential resolution in six- to eleven-year-old children and adults. In all age groups, a prominent accent facilitated the detection of a target in contrastive discourse sequences (pink cat → green cat), whereas it led to a garden path in non-contrastive sequences (pink rabbit → green monkey: the initial fixations were on rabbits). While the data indicate that children as young as age six immediately interpret contrastive accent, even the oldest child group showed delayed fixations compared to adults. We argue that the children's slower recovery from the garden path reflects the gradual development in cognitive flexibility that matures independently of general oculomotor control.
离线和在线理解研究均表明，不仅幼儿和学龄前儿童，大龄学龄儿童在解读对比标记音高突出方面也存在困难。为了测试儿童在学年期间处理对比标记韵律时是否能达到成人般的熟练程度，一项眼动追踪实验考察了重音对6至11岁儿童及成人指称消解的影响。在所有年龄组中，突出的重音有助于在对比性话语序列（粉色猫→绿色猫）中检测目标，而在非对比性序列（粉色兔子→绿色猴子：最初的注视点在兔子上）中则会导致误入歧途。虽然数据表明6岁的儿童能立即解读对比重音，但即使是年龄最大的儿童组与成人相比也表现出注视延迟。我们认为，儿童从误入歧途状态中恢复较慢反映了认知灵活性的逐渐发展，这种发展独立于一般的眼动控制而成熟。
