Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Language and Speech
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Fennell, C. T.
Right arrow Articles by Werker, J. F.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Early Word Learners' Ability to Access Phonetic Detail in Well-Known Words

Christopher T. Fennell

University of British Columbia, chris{at}psych.ubc.ca

Janet F. Werker

University of British Columbia

Several recent studiesfrom our laboratory have shown that14-month old infants have difficulty learning to associate two phonetically similar new words to two different objects when tested in the Switcht task. Because the infants can discriminate the same phonetic detail that they fail to use in the associative word-learning situation, we have argued that this wordlearning failure results from a processingoverload. Herewe explore how infants perform in the Switch task with already known minimally different words. The experiment involved the same phonetic difference as used inour earlier word learning studies. Following habituation to two familiar minimal pairobject-label combinations(ball and doll), infants of 14months looked longer to aviolation in the object label pairing(e.g., label `ball'pairedwith object doll) than to an appropriate pairing. These resultsusing well known words are consistent withthe pattern of data recently obtained by Swingley and Aslin(2002) in which it was found that infants of 14 months looklonger tothe correct object when the accompanying well known word is spoken correctly rather than mispronounced. We discuss how these results are compatible with the limited resource explanation originally offered by Stager and Werker (1997).

Key Words: infants • lexical • minimal pairs • phonetic • representations

Language and Speech, Vol. 46, No. 2-3, 245-264 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/00238309030460020901
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Language and SpeechHome page
T. Nazzi and J. Bertoncini
Phonetic Specificity in Early Lexical Acquisition: New Evidence from Consonants in Coda Positions
Language and Speech, December 1, 2009; 52(4): 463 - 480.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Language and SpeechHome page
S. Peperkamp
Phonological Acquisition: Recent Attainments and New Challenges
Language and Speech, June 1, 2003; 46(2-3): 87 - 113.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Language and SpeechHome page
C. C. Best and G. W. McRoberts
Infant Perception of Non-Native Consonant Contrasts that Adults Assimilate in Different Ways
Language and Speech, June 1, 2003; 46(2-3): 183 - 216.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Language and SpeechHome page
D. Swingley
Phonetic Detail in the Developing Lexicon
Language and Speech, June 1, 2003; 46(2-3): 265 - 294.
[Abstract] [PDF]