Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers

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.

Figure 1

F1 and F2 formants of the tokens of the determiner the for the three item types. Note the canonical formant transitions for the facilitating tokens and the steady formant values in the neutral token.

Figure 2

Proportion looking to target from onset of the to 1250 ms after target-word onset in the two conditions. Symbols and error bars represent observed means ±SE. Dashed vertical lines mark onset of the, target-word onset, and target-word offset.

Figure 3

Growth curve estimates of looking probability during analysis window. Symbols and lines represent model estimates, and ribbon represents ±SE. Empirical logit values on y-axis correspond to proportions of .5, .62, .73, .82. Note that the curves are essentially phase-shifted by 100 ms.