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Mattock, Karen and Polka, Linda and Rvachew, Susan and Krehm, Madelaine (2010) The first steps in word learning are easier when the shoes fit : comparing monolingual and bilingual infants. Developmental Science, 13 (1). pp. 229-243. ISSN 1363-755X

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English, French, and bilingual English-French 17-month-old infants were compared for their performance on a word learning task using the Switch task. Object names presented a ⁄ b ⁄ vs. ⁄ g ⁄ contrast that is phonemic in both English and French, and auditory strings comprised English and French pronunciations by an adult bilingual. Infants were habituated to two novel objects labeled ‘bowce’ or ‘gowce’ and were then presented with a switch trial where a familiar word and familiar object were paired in a novel combination, and a same trial with a familiar word–object pairing. Bilingual infants looked significantly longer to switch vs. same trials, but English and French monolinguals did not, suggesting that bilingual infants can learn word–object associations when the phonetic conditions favor their input. Monolingual infants likely failed because the bilingual mode of presentation increased phonetic variability and did not match their real-world input. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis by presenting monolingual infants with nonce word tokens restricted to native language pronunciations. Monolinguals succeeded in this case. Experiment 3 revealed that the presence of unfamiliar pronunciations in Experiment 2, rather than a reduction in overall phonetic variability was the key factor to success, as French infants failed when tested with English pronunciations of the nonce words. Thus phonetic variability impacts how infants perform in the switch task in ways that contribute to differences in monolingual and bilingual performance. Moreover, both monolinguals and bilinguals are developing adaptive speech processing skills that are specific to the language(s) they are learning.

Item Type: Article
Journal or Publication Title: Developmental Science
Uncontrolled Keywords: bilingual ; word learning ; switch task ; phonetic variability ; infants
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Departments: Faculty of Science and Technology > Psychology
ID Code: 31010
Deposited By: Dr Karen J Mattock
Deposited On: 15 Dec 2009 13:11
Refereed?: Yes
Published?: Published
Last Modified: 26 Jul 2012 16:52
Identification Number:

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