Emotional, linguistic or just cute? The function of pitch contours in infant- and foreigner-directed speech (original) (raw)
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Infant Behavior & Development, 2001
The aim of this study was to investigate the prosodic characteristics of infant-directed speech (IDS) to boys and girls in a tonal (Thai) and non-tonal (Australian English) language. Speech was collected from mothers speaking to infants at birth, and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, and also to another adult. Mean-F 0 , pitch range, and utterance slope-F 0 were extracted, and the integrity of the tonal information in Thai investigated. The age trends across the two languages differed for each of these measures but Australian English IDS was generally more exaggerated than Thai IDS. With respect to sex differences, Australian English mothers used higher mean-F 0 , pitch range, and more rising utterances for girls than boys, but Thai mothers used more subdued mean-F 0 and more falling utterances for girls than boys. Despite variations in pitch modifications by Thai and Australian English mothers, overall IDS is more exaggerated than adult-directed speech (ADS) in both languages. Furthermore, tonal information in Thai was only slightly less identifiable in Thai IDS than Thai ADS. The universal features and language-specific differences in IDS are discussed in terms of facilitating infant socialization at younger ages, and language acquisition later in infancy.
Pitch characteristics of infant-directed speech affect infants’ ability to discriminate vowels
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2002
"Baby talk" or speech directed to prelinguistic infants is high in pitch and has exaggerated pitch contours (up/down patterns of pitch change) across languages and cultures. Using an acoustic model, we predicted that the large pitch contours of infant-directed speech should improve infants' ability to discriminate vowels. On the other hand, the same model predicted that high pitch would not benefit, and might actually impair, infants' ability to discriminate vowels. We then confirmed these predictions experimentally. We conclude that the exaggerated pitch contours of infant-directed speech aid infants' acquisition of vowel categories but that the high pitch of infant-directed speech must serve another function, such as attracting infants' attention or aiding emotional communication.
Pitch accent distribution in German infant-directed speech
DESCRIPTION Infant-directed speech exhibits slower speech rate, higher pitch and larger f0-excursions than adult-directed speech. Apart from these phonetic properties established in many languages, little is known on the intonational phonological structure in individual languages, i.e. pitch accents and boundary tones and their frequency distribution. Here, we investigated the intonation of infant-directed speech in German. We extracted all turns from the CHILDES database directed towards infants younger than one year (n=585). Two annotators labeled pitch accent types and boundary tones according to the autosegmental-metrical intonation system GToBI. GToBI basically distinguishes high-toned and low-toned accented syllables (H* and L*), which are optionally preceded by leading tones (H+L*, L+H*) or followed by trailing tones (L*+H). Main results showed a) that approximately every second word was accented, b) that phrases ending in a low tone were more frequent than those ending in a ...
Pitch and Communicative Intent in Mother's Speech: Adjustments for Age and Sex in the First Year
Infancy, 2003
This study investigated pitch and communicative intent in mothers' infant-directed speech spoken to their infants at birth, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Audio recordings of mothers (6 with female, and 6 with male infants) talking to another adult and to their infant at 5 ages were low-pass filtered and rated by 60 adults on 5 scales (Positive or Negative Affect, Express Affection, Encourage Attention, Comfort or Soothe, and Direct Behavior). Mean fundamental frequency (F o) and pitch range of utterances were also measured. Utterances associated with positive affect tend to peak at 6 and 12 months, whereas more directive utterances peaked at 9 months. Mean F o followed the age trend for affective utterances, and pitch range followed the trend for directive utterances. The results suggest mother speech patterns reflect, complement, and perhaps facilitate infant development. "Are you my little pumpkin pie?" There are certain aspects of this utterance that signify that it is spoken to an infant: the words used (linguistic), the pitch and prosodic features (acoustic), and the affect conveyed in the voice (affective). The linguistic and acoustic aspects that distinguish infant-directed speech (IDS) from adult-directed speech (ADS) have been well documented: IDS has shorter utterances, longer pauses, slower speech rate, higher pitch, greater pitch modulation,
Discrimination of pitch contours by neonates
Infant Behavior and Development, 1998
With the high-amplitude sucking procedure, newborns were presented with two lists of phonetically varied Japanese words differing in pitch contour. Discrimination of the lists was found, thus indicating that newborns are able to extract pitch contour information at the word level.
Expanded intonation contours in mothers' speech to newborns
Developmental Psychology, 1984
The prosodic characteristics of "motherese" were examined in the speech of 24 German mothers to their newborns. Each subject was recorded in three observational conditions, while addressing (a) her 3-to 5-day-oId baby (M-B Speech); (b) the absent infant, as if present (Simulated M-B Speech); and (c) the adult interviewer (M-A Speech). For each subject, 2-minute speech samples from each condition were acoustically analyzed. It was found that in M-B Speech, mothers spoke with higher pitch, wider pitch excursions, longer pauses, shorter utterances, and more prosodic repetition than in M-A Speech. Furthermore, 77% of the utterances in the M-B Speech sample conformed to a limited set of prosodic patterns that occurred only rarely in adult-directed speech, i.e., they consisted of characteristic "expanded" intonation contours, or they were whispered. The prosody of mothers' speech is discussed in terms of its immediate influence within the context of motherinfant interaction, as well as its potential long-range contribution to perceptual, social, and linguistic development.
Comparing vocal parameters in spontaneous and posed child-directed speech
2006
Abstract Research on the facial expression of emotion distinguishes between correlates of posed vs. spontaneous emotion expression. Similar research in the vocal domain is lacking. In this study, we compare changes in a range of vocal parameters between posed vs. spontaneous adult-directed (AD) and child–directed (CD) speech. CDS is a highly affectively charged speech register which lends itself well to the study of posed vs. spontaneous emotion expression.