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1. Very Young Infants’ Sensitivity to Consonant Mispronunciations in Word Recognition

   Beech, Caroline; Swingley, Daniel (June 2023, University of California)

   Goldwater, M; Anggoro, FK; Hayes, BK; Ong, DC (Ed.)

   Before they start to talk, infants learn the form and meaning of many common words. In the present work, we investigated the nature of this word knowledge, testing the specificity of very young infants’ (6-14 months) phonological represen- tations in an internet-based language-guided-looking task using correct pronunciations and initial-consonant mispronunciations of common words. Across the current sample (n=78 out of 96 pre-registered), infants’ proportion looking to the target (named image) versus the distracter was significantly lower when the target word was mispronounced, indicating sensitivity to phonological deviation. Performance patterns varied by age group. The youngest group (6-8 months, n=30) was at chance in both conditions, the middle group (9-11 months, n=21) showed significant recognition of correct pronunciations and a marginal mispronunciation effect, and the oldest age group (12-14 months, n=27) demonstrated the mature pattern: significant recognition and a significant mispronunciation effect. Ongoing work is completing the pre-registered sample size. 

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2. English‐learning infants developing sensitivity to vowel phonotactic cues to word segmentation

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13564  

   Katsuda, Hironori; Sundara, Megha (September 2024, Developmental Science)

   Abstract Previous research has shown that when domain‐general transitional probability (TP) cues to word segmentation are in conflict with language‐specific stress cues, English‐learning 5‐ and 7‐month‐olds rely on TP, whereas 9‐month‐olds rely on stress. In two artificial languages, we evaluated English‐learning infants’ sensitivity to TP cues to word segmentation vis‐a‐vis language‐specific vowel phonotactic (VP) cues—English words do not end in lax vowels. These cues were either consistent or conflicting. When these cues were in conflict, 10‐month‐olds relied on the VP cues, whereas 5‐month‐olds relied on TP. These findings align with statistical bootstrapping accounts, where infants initially use domain‐general distributional information for word segmentation, and subsequently discover language‐specific patterns based on segmented words. Research HighlightsResearch indicates that when transitional probability (TP) conflicts with stress cues for word segmentation, English‐learning 9‐month‐olds rely on stress, whereas younger infants rely on TP.In two artificial languages, we evaluated English‐learning infants’ sensitivity to TP versus vowel phonotactic (VP) cues for word segmentation.When these cues conflicted, 10‐month‐olds relied on VPs, whereas 5‐month‐olds relied on TP.These findings align with statistical bootstrapping accounts, where infants first utilize domain‐general distributional information for word segmentation, and then identify language‐specific patterns from segmented words. 

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3. Auditory Word Comprehension Is Less Incremental in Isolated Words

   https://doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00084  

   Gaston, Phoebe; Brodbeck, Christian; Phillips, Colin; Lau, Ellen (January 2023, Neurobiology of Language)

   Abstract Partial speech input is often understood to trigger rapid and automatic activation of successively higher-level representations of words, from sound to meaning. Here we show evidence from magnetoencephalography that this type of incremental processing is limited when words are heard in isolation as compared to continuous speech. This suggests a less unified and automatic word recognition process than is often assumed. We present evidence from isolated words that neural effects of phoneme probability, quantified by phoneme surprisal, are significantly stronger than (statistically null) effects of phoneme-by-phoneme lexical uncertainty, quantified by cohort entropy. In contrast, we find robust effects of both cohort entropy and phoneme surprisal during perception of connected speech, with a significant interaction between the contexts. This dissociation rules out models of word recognition in which phoneme surprisal and cohort entropy are common indicators of a uniform process, even though these closely related information-theoretic measures both arise from the probability distribution of wordforms consistent with the input. We propose that phoneme surprisal effects reflect automatic access of a lower level of representation of the auditory input (e.g., wordforms) while the occurrence of cohort entropy effects is task sensitive, driven by a competition process or a higher-level representation that is engaged late (or not at all) during the processing of single words. 

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4. Metaconcepts: Isolating Context in Word Embeddings

   https://doi.org/10.1109/MIPR.2019.00110  

   Sutor, Peter; Aloimonos, Yiannis; Fermuller, Cornelia; Summers-Stay, Douglas (March 2019, 2019 IEEE Conference on Multimedia Information Processing and Retrieval (MIPR))

   ord embeddings are commonly used to measure word-level semantic similarity in text, especially in direct word- to-word comparisons. However, the relationships between words in the embedding space are often viewed as approximately linear and concepts comprised of multiple words are a sort of linear combination. In this paper, we demonstrate that this is not generally true and show how the relationships can be better captured by leveraging the topology of the embedding space. We propose a technique for directly computing new vectors representing multiple words in a way that naturally combines them into a new, more consistent space where distance better correlates to similarity. We show that this technique works well for natural language, even when it comprises multiple words, on a simple task derived from WordNet synset descriptions and examples of words. Thus, the generated vectors better represent complex concepts in the word embedding space. 

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5. Early word‐learning skills: A missing link in understanding the vocabulary gap?

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13034  

   Shavlik, Margaret; Davis‐Kean, Pamela E.; Schwab, Jessica F.; Booth, Amy E. (September 2020, Developmental Science)

   Socioeconomic status (SES) has been repeatedly linked to the developmental trajectory of vocabulary acquisition in young children. However, the nature of this relationship remains underspecified. In particular, despite an extensive literature documenting young children's reliance on a host of skills and strategies to learn new words, little attention has been paid to whether and how these skills relate to measures of SES and vocabulary acquisition. To evaluate these relationships, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, 205 2.5‐ to 3.5‐year‐old children from widely varying socioeconomic backgrounds were tested on a broad range of word‐learning skills that tap their ability to resolve cases of ambiguous reference and to extend words appropriately. Children's executive functioning and phonological memory skills were also assessed. In Study 2, 77 of those children returned for a follow‐up session several months later, at which time two additional measures of vocabulary were obtained. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and multivariate regression, we provide evidence of the mediating role of word‐learning skills on the relationship between SES and vocabulary skill over the course of early development. 

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