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From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Laing, C; Bergelson, E
Published in: Cognitive psychology
November 2020

Infants' early babbling allows them to engage in proto-conversations with caretakers, well before clearly articulated, meaningful words are part of their productive lexicon. Moreover, the well-rehearsed sounds from babble serve as a perceptual 'filter', drawing infants' attention towards words that match the sounds they can reliably produce. Using naturalistic home recordings of 44 10-11-month-olds (an age with high variability in early speech sound production), this study tests whether infants' early consonant productions match words and objects in their environment. We find that infants' babble matches the consonants produced in their caregivers' speech. Infants with a well-established consonant repertoire also match their babble to objects in their environment. Our findings show that infants' early consonant productions are shaped by their input: by 10 months, the sounds of babble match what infants see and hear.

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Published In

Cognitive psychology

DOI

EISSN

1095-5623

ISSN

0010-0285

Publication Date

November 2020

Volume

122

Start / End Page

101308

Related Subject Headings

  • Verbal Learning
  • Speech Perception
  • Phonetics
  • Male
  • Language Development
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Communication
 

Citation

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Laing, C., & Bergelson, E. (2020). From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment. Cognitive Psychology, 122, 101308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308
Laing, Catherine, and Elika Bergelson. “From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment.Cognitive Psychology 122 (November 2020): 101308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308.
Laing C, Bergelson E. From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment. Cognitive psychology. 2020 Nov;122:101308.
Laing, Catherine, and Elika Bergelson. “From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment.Cognitive Psychology, vol. 122, Nov. 2020, p. 101308. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101308.
Laing C, Bergelson E. From babble to words: Infants' early productions match words and objects in their environment. Cognitive psychology. 2020 Nov;122:101308.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognitive psychology

DOI

EISSN

1095-5623

ISSN

0010-0285

Publication Date

November 2020

Volume

122

Start / End Page

101308

Related Subject Headings

  • Verbal Learning
  • Speech Perception
  • Phonetics
  • Male
  • Language Development
  • Infant
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Communication