Anticipatory Coarticulation Facilitates Word Recognition in Toddlers

Authors

Tristan Mahr, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Brianna T.M. McMillan, University of Wisconsin-MadisonFollow
Jenny R. Saffran, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Susan Ellis Weismer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jan Edwards, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2015

Publication Title

Cognition

Abstract

Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18-24. month-olds (n= 29) used coarticulatory cues on the word "the" when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral vs. facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition.

Keywords

Coarticulation, Eye tracking, Language development, Lexical development, Word learning, Word recognition

Volume

142

First Page

345

Last Page

350

DOI

10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.009

ISSN

00100277

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Recommended Citation

Mahr, Tristan; McMillan, Brianna T.M.; Saffran, Jenny R.; Ellis Weismer, Susan; and Edwards, Jan, "Anticipatory Coarticulation Facilitates Word Recognition in Toddlers" (2015). Psychology: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/psy_facpubs/109