Discovering Words

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While in principle, any group-level preference is indicative that infants are able to differentiate the items, the experiments most similar to this one have resulted in a novelty preference (e. The Greek word kinema means ‘movement’, giving the adjective kinemato-, to which is added graph, meaning ‘drawing’. Experiments 1A and 1B established that (1) the ability to segment fluent speech on the basis of conditional information is present as early as 5 months of age and (2) that these infants segment on the basis of statistical cues rather than lexical stress cues when they are placed in conflict, replicating the findings of Thiessen and Saffran (2003) with 7-month-olds. A paired-samples t-test (all t-tests reported here and in subsequent experiments are two-tailed) revealed that the difference in listening times as a function of test item type was significant, t(9) = 2.

Instead, sensitivity to phonological cues emerges from earlier sensitivity to conditional statistical information in a developmental progression. This consistent preference across the trochaic and iambic language indicates that infants segmented the same items from both familiarization streams. The abbreviation ‘cinema’ was not used until 1910, but in some cases the spelling ‘kinema’ was preferred, perhaps in an attempt to give respectability to a popular medium by referencing the Greek origins of the word. To assess these possibilities, we performed a 2 (Test item) × 2 (Condition) ANOVA to determine whether infants showed the same, or a significantly different, preference for test items as a function of which segmentation stream they heard. For example, exposure to a set of words allows infants to discover the phonological regularities that characterize those words ( Chambers et al.Once the infant looked at the central monitor, the video was replaced by a static image of a checkerboard, and the artificial language began to play. If infants of this age segment statistical words rather than trochaic disyllables, this would provide strong support for the idea that conditional information is one powerful language-universal cue that could be recruited to acquire language-specific knowledge such as the preferred position of stressed syllables within word forms. Thiessen and Saffran (2007) suggest that this developmental progression is due to statistical learning.

In addition to the English words presented, the books also contain the French and Cree equivalents, placing these among some of the most dynamic and useful board books on the market, perfectly suitable for the classroom, library and nursery. Neepin Auger’s colourful board books for infants have collectively sold well over 20,000 copies since they first appeared on the market. The pitch peak of the vowels varied between 255 and 270 Hz, compared to a monotonic 200 Hz for the unstressed syllables.These results support our prediction that 5-month-olds should rely on conditional statistical information over lexical stress, as do 7-month-olds infants ( Thiessen and Saffran, 2003). Neepin Auger’s books for children contain original, brightly coloured images and early education level concepts familiar to everyone. However, if infants segment the artificial language via lexical stress, they should show the opposite pattern of preference across the two languages, because lexical stress occurs in word-initial position in the trochaic language and word-final position in the iambic language. Discovering Words" provides an enticing introduction to the subject of etymology, showing how the words we use hold the histories of human interaction and communication. Neepin Auger's alphabet board book uses the same bright, simple style of illustration as the companion Discovering Numbers.