The effects of child-directed speech vs adult-directed speech on attention and categorization in prelinguistic infants
Year: 1993
Type: article
Abstract: The facilitative role of linguistic input on nonlinguistic categorization is frequently explained in terms of children's attention to uniquely linguistic forms such as words. In the three experiments reported here, 15-month-old infants were familiarized to visual stimuli in the context of hearing either adult-directed speech (ADS) or child-directed speech (CDS) during visual fixations. Categorization was successful with CDS and ADS input when accumulated attention was not constrained (Experiment 1). Moreover, there were no differences in accumulated attention as a function of input type. When attention was constrained to 90 seconds (Experiments 2 and 3), ADS input disrupted categorization more for female than male subjects. This disruption is not predicted by current constraints/biases accounts and suggests that a psychologically real noun-category bias may not be present prior to the vocabulary explosion.
Source: DigitalCommons@UNO
Author: Jean M. Schumacher
Institution: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2262083843