Morgan J L, Saffran J R
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Child Dev. 1995 Aug;66(4):911-36.
5 studies examined contributions of syllable-ordering and rhythmic properties of syllable strings to 6- and 9-month-old infants' speech segmentation. A pair of methods measuring complementary properties of representational units was used: a noise detection task sensitive to perceived cohesiveness of pairs of syllables, and a discrimination maintenance task sensitive to compactness of representations of syllable pairs. For 9-month-olds, results show that a key pair of syllables was represented as a unit when the grouping of these syllables was supported by correlated regularities of ordering and rhythm in the set of stimulus strings, but not when such grouping was supported by only rhythmic or only syllable-ordering regularity. For 6-month-olds, results show that a key pair of syllables was represented as a unit whenever grouping was supported by rhythmic regularity in the stimulus strings, regardless of whether syllable-ordering regularity was also present. Thus, whereas 9-month-olds appear to be capable of integrating sequential and suprasegmental information in forming worldlike (multisyllabic) phonological percepts, 6-month-olds are not. The emergence of integrative abilities portends increased efficiency in speech processing and may contribute to the formation and use of an initial lexicon.
5项研究考察了音节顺序和音节串的节奏特性对6个月和9个月大婴儿语音分割的影响。研究使用了一对测量表征单元互补特性的方法：一种对音节对的感知连贯性敏感的噪声检测任务，以及一种对音节对表征的紧凑性敏感的辨别维持任务。对于9个月大的婴儿，结果表明，当这些音节的分组得到刺激串集合中顺序和节奏的相关规律支持时，关键音节对被表征为一个单元，但当这种分组仅由节奏或仅由音节顺序规律支持时，则不然。对于6个月大的婴儿，结果表明，只要刺激串中的节奏规律支持分组，关键音节对就被表征为一个单元，无论是否也存在音节顺序规律。因此，9个月大的婴儿似乎能够在形成类似单词（多音节）的语音感知时整合顺序和超音段信息，而6个月大的婴儿则不能。整合能力的出现预示着语音处理效率的提高，并可能有助于初始词汇的形成和使用。
