Infants deploy selective attention to the mouth of a talking face when learning speech - PubMed (original) (raw)

Infants deploy selective attention to the mouth of a talking face when learning speech

David J Lewkowicz et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012.

Abstract

The mechanisms underlying the acquisition of speech-production ability in human infancy are not well understood. We tracked 4-12-mo-old English-learning infants' and adults' eye gaze while they watched and listened to a female reciting a monologue either in their native (English) or nonnative (Spanish) language. We found that infants shifted their attention from the eyes to the mouth between 4 and 8 mo of age regardless of language and then began a shift back to the eyes at 12 mo in response to native but not nonnative speech. We posit that the first shift enables infants to gain access to redundant audiovisual speech cues that enable them to learn their native speech forms and that the second shift reflects growing native-language expertise that frees them to shift attention to the eyes to gain access to social cues. On this account, 12-mo-old infants do not shift attention to the eyes when exposed to nonnative speech because increasing native-language expertise and perceptual narrowing make it more difficult to process nonnative speech and require them to continue to access redundant audiovisual cues. Overall, the current findings demonstrate that the development of speech production capacity relies on changes in selective audiovisual attention and that this depends critically on early experience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

PTLT difference scores as a function of age in response to the English monologue. Error bars represent SEMs. The screen shots above the graph are representative scan patterns of the talker's face in a 4- and an 8-mo-old infant and in an adult (each black dot represents a single visual fixation).

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

PTLT difference scores as a function of age in response to the Spanish monologue. Error bars represent SEMs. The screen shots above the graph are representative scan patterns of the talker's face in a 4-, an 8-, and a 12-mo-old infant and in an adult.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.

Average pupil size during the test session in infants exposed to the Spanish monologue as a function of age.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Kuhl PK. Is speech learning ‘gated’ by the social brain? Dev Sci. 2007;10:110–120. - PubMed
    1. Werker JF, Tees RC. Speech perception as a window for understanding plasticity and commitment in language systems of the brain. Dev Psychobiol. 2005;46:233–251. - PubMed
    1. Goldstein MH, Schwade JA. Social feedback to infants’ babbling facilitates rapid phonological learning. Psychol Sci. 2008;19:515–523. - PubMed
    1. Kuhl PK, Meltzoff AN. Infant vocalizations in response to speech: Vocal imitation and developmental change. J Acoust Soc Am. 1996;100:2425–2438. - PMC - PubMed
    1. De Boysson-Bardies B, Hallé P, Sagart L, Durand C. A crosslinguistic investigation of vowel formants in babbling. J Child Lang. 1989;16:1–17. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources