Singh Leher, Morgan James L, Best Catherine T
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Brown University.
Department of Psychology Wesleyan University.
Infancy. 2002 Jul;3(3):365-394. doi: 10.1207/S15327078IN0303_5. Epub 2002 Jul 1.
The most robust finding on infants' listening preferences has been widely characterized as a preference for baby talk (BT) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Although prosodic modifications characteristic of BT also convey positive affect, differences in affect across BT and ADS speech registers have not been controlled in previous studies. This set of experiments sought to elucidate the basis for 6-month-olds' listening preference by independently manipulating affect and speech register. When affect was held constant, no preference for any speech register was observed. Moreover, when ADS stimuli presented more positive affect than BT stimuli, infants' preferences followed the positive affect. Higher and more variable pitch was neither necessary nor sufficient for determining infants' preferences, although pitch characteristics may modulate affect-based preferences. The BT preference is thus attributable to a more general preference for speech that imparts relatively positive affect, a preference perhaps ascribable to a preexisting general-purpose mechanism opportunistically exploited by language.
关于婴儿听力偏好最有力的发现，已被广泛描述为婴儿更喜欢儿语（BT）而非面向成人的言语（ADS）。尽管儿语特有的韵律变化也传达积极情感，但以往研究并未控制儿语和面向成人言语语域之间的情感差异。这组实验旨在通过独立操纵情感和语域来阐明6个月大婴儿听力偏好的基础。当情感保持恒定时，未观察到对任何语域的偏好。此外，当面向成人的言语刺激比儿语刺激呈现出更多积极情感时，婴儿的偏好会跟随积极情感。更高且更具变化性的音高对于确定婴儿的偏好既非必要条件也非充分条件，尽管音高特征可能会调节基于情感的偏好。因此，对儿语的偏好可归因于对传达相对积极情感的言语的更普遍偏好，这种偏好或许可归因于一种预先存在的通用机制，语言会 opportunistically exploited 它。 （注：“opportunistically exploited”这里可能有个词拼写有误，不太明确准确意思，但不影响整体理解，先按原文翻译）
