@article{HoehleFritzscheMessetal.2020, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Fritzsche, Tom and Meß, Katharina and Philipp, Mareike and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Only the right noise?}, series = {Developmental Science}, volume = {23}, journal = {Developmental Science}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1363-755X}, doi = {10.1111/desc.12950}, pages = {1 -- 16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Seminal work by Werker and colleagues (Stager \& Werker [1997]Nature, 388, 381-382) has found that 14-month-old infants do not show evidence for learning minimal pairs in the habituation-switch paradigm. However, when multiple speakers produce the minimal pair in acoustically variable ways, infants' performance improves in comparison to a single speaker condition (Rost \& McMurray [2009]Developmental Science, 12, 339-349). The current study further extends these results and assesses how different kinds of input variability affect 14-month-olds' minimal pair learning in the habituation-switch paradigm testing German learning infants. The first two experiments investigated word learning when the labels were spoken by a single speaker versus when the labels were spoken by multiple speakers. In the third experiment we studied whether non-acoustic variability, implemented by visual variability of the objects presented together with the labels, would also affect minimal pair learning. We found enhanced learning in the multiple speakers compared to the single speaker condition, confirming previous findings with English-learning infants. In contrast, visual variability of the presented objects did not support learning. These findings both confirm and better delimit the beneficial role of speech-specific variability in minimal pair learning. Finally, we review different proposals on the mechanisms via which variability confers benefits to learning and outline what may be likely principles that underlie this benefit. We highlight among these the multiplicity of acoustic cues signalling phonemic contrasts and the presence of relations among these cues. It is in these relations where we trace part of the source for the apparent paradoxical benefit of variability in learning.}, language = {en} } @article{vanOmmenBollAvetisyanLarrazaetal.2020, author = {van Ommen, Sandrien and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Larraza, Saioa and Wellmann, Caroline and Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry}, title = {Language-specific prosodic acquisition}, series = {Journal of memory and language: JML}, volume = {112}, journal = {Journal of memory and language: JML}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2020.104108}, pages = {16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This study compares the development of prosodic processing in French- and German-learning infants. The emergence of language-specific perception of phrase boundaries was directly tested using the same stimuli across these two languages. French-learning (Experiment 1, 2) and German-learning 6- and 8-month-olds (Experiment 3) listened to the same French noun sequences with or without major prosodic boundaries ([Loulou et Manou] [et Nina]; [Loulou et Manou et Nina], respectively). The boundaries were either naturally cued (Experiment 1), or cued exclusively by pitch and duration (Experiment 2, 3). French-learning 6- and 8-month-olds both perceived the natural boundary, but neither perceived the boundary when only two cues were present. In contrast, German-learning infants develop from not perceiving the two-cue boundary at 6 months to perceiving it at 8 months, just like German-learning 8-month-olds listening to German (Wellmann, Holzgrefe, Truckenbrodt, Wartenburger, \& Hohle, 2012). In a control experiment (Experiment 4), we found little difference between German and French adult listeners, suggesting that later, French listeners catch up with German listeners. Taken together, these cross-linguistic differences in the perception of identical stimuli provide direct evidence for language-specific development of prosodic boundary perception.}, language = {en} } @article{HoehleBijeljacBabicNazzi2019, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka and Nazzi, Thierry}, title = {Variability and stability in early language acquisition}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, volume = {23}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, number = {1}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S1366728919000348}, pages = {56 -- 71}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Many human infants grow up learning more than one language simultaneously but only recently has research started to study early language acquisition in this population more systematically. The paper gives an overview on findings on early language acquisition in bilingual infants during the first two years of life and compares these findings to current knowledge on early language acquisition in monolingual infants. Given the state of the research, the overview focuses on research on phonological and early lexical development in the first two years of life. We will show that the developmental trajectory of early language acquisition in these areas is very similar in mono- and bilingual infants suggesting that these early steps into language are guided by mechanisms that are rather robust against the differences in the conditions of language exposure that mono- and bilingual infants typically experience.}, language = {en} } @article{BollAvetisyanBhataraUngeretal.2020, author = {Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and Unger, Annika and Nazzi, Thierry and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {Rhythmic grouping biases in simultaneous bilinguals}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, volume = {23}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, number = {5}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S1366728920000140}, pages = {1070 -- 1081}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This study provides a novel approach for testing the universality of perceptual biases by looking at speech processing in simultaneous bilingual adults learning two languages that support the maintenance of this bias to different degrees. Specifically, we investigated the Iambic/Trochaic Law, an assumed universal grouping bias, in simultaneous French-German bilinguals, presenting them with streams of syllables varying in intensity, duration or neither and asking them whether they perceived them as strong-weak or weak-strong groupings. Results showed robust, consistent grouping preferences. A comparison to monolinguals from previous studies revealed that they pattern with German-speaking monolinguals, and differ from French-speaking monolinguals. The distribution of simultaneous bilinguals' individual performance was best explained by a model fitting a unimodal (not bimodal) distribution, failing to support two subgroups of language dominance. Moreover, neither language experience nor language context predicted their performance. These findings suggest a special role for universal biases in simultaneous bilinguals.}, language = {en} } @article{KrasotkinaGoetzHoehleetal.2021, author = {Krasotkina, Anna and G{\"o}tz, Antonia and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Schwarzer, Gudrun}, title = {Bimodal familiarization re-sensitizes 12-month-old infants to other-race faces}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {62}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101502}, pages = {8}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Perceptual narrowing in the domain of face perception typically begins to reduce infants' sensitivity to differences distinguishing other-race faces from approximately 6 months of age. The present study investigated whether it is possible to re-sensitize Caucasian 12-month-old infants to other-race Asian faces through statistical learning by familiarizing them with different statistical distributions of these faces. The familiarization faces were created by generating a morphed continuum from one Asian face identity to another. In the unimodal condition, infants were familiarized with a frequency distribution wherein they saw the midpoint face of the morphed continuum the most frequently. In the bimodal condition, infants were familiarized with a frequency distribution wherein they saw faces closer to the endpoints of the morphed continuum the most frequently. After familiarization, infants were tested on their discrimination of the two original Asian faces. The infants' looking times during the test indicated that infants in the bimodal condition could discriminate between the two faces, while infants in the unimodal condition could not. These findings therefore suggest that 12-month-old Caucasian infants could be re-sensitized to Asian faces by familiarizing them with a bimodal frequency distribution of such faces.}, language = {en} } @article{RenHoehle2022, author = {Ren, Jie and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {The interplay between language acquisition and cognitive development}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {67}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier Science}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101718}, pages = {3}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @article{KrasotkinaGoetzHoehleetal.2020, author = {Krasotkina, Anna and G{\"o}tz, Antonia and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Schwarzer, Gudrun}, title = {Infants' gaze patterns for same-race and other-race faces, and the other-race effect}, series = {Brain Sciences}, volume = {10}, journal = {Brain Sciences}, number = {6}, publisher = {Brain Sciences}, address = {Basel}, issn = {2076-3425}, doi = {10.3390/brainsci10060331}, pages = {12}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The other-race effect (ORE) can be described as difficulties in discriminating between faces of ethnicities other than one's own, and can already be observed at approximately 9 months of age. Recent studies also showed that infants visually explore same-and other-race faces differently. However, it is still unclear whether infants' looking behavior for same- and other-race faces is related to their face discrimination abilities. To investigate this question we conducted a habituation-dishabituation experiment to examine Caucasian 9-month-old infants' gaze behavior, and their discrimination of same- and other-race faces, using eye-tracking measurements. We found that infants looked longer at the eyes of same-race faces over the course of habituation, as compared to other-race faces. After habituation, infants demonstrated a clear other-race effect by successfully discriminating between same-race faces, but not other-race faces. Importantly, the infants' ability to discriminate between same-race faces significantly correlated with their fixation time towards the eyes of same-race faces during habituation. Thus, our findings suggest that for infants old enough to begin exhibiting the ORE, gaze behavior during habituation is related to their ability to differentiate among same-race faces, compared to other-race faces.}, language = {en} } @article{KrasotkinaGoetzHoehleetal.2021, author = {Krasotkina, Anna and G{\"o}tz, Antonia and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Schwarzer, Gudrun}, title = {Perceptual narrowing in face- and speech-perception domains in infancy}, series = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {64}, journal = {Infant behavior \& development : an international and interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {New York}, issn = {0163-6383}, doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101607}, pages = {9}, year = {2021}, abstract = {During the first year of life, infants undergo a process known as perceptual narrowing, which reduces their sensitivity to classes of stimuli which the infants do not encounter in their environment. It has been proposed that perceptual narrowing for faces and speech may be driven by shared domain-general processes. To investigate this theory, our study longitudinally tested 50 German Caucasian infants with respect to these domains first at 6 months of age followed by a second testing at 9 months of age. We used an infant-controlled habituation-dishabituation paradigm to test the infants' ability to discriminate among other-race Asian faces and non-native Cantonese speech tones, as well as same-race Caucasian faces as a control. We found that while at 6 months of age infants could discriminate among all stimuli, by 9 months of age they could no longer discriminate among other-race faces or non-native tones. However, infants could discriminate among same-race stimuli both at 6 and at 9 months of age. These results demonstrate that the same infants undergo perceptual narrowing for both other-race faces and non-native speech tones between the ages of 6 and 9 months. This parallel development of perceptual narrowing occurring in both the face and speech perception modalities over the same period of time lends support to the domain-general theory of perceptual narrowing in face and speech perception.}, language = {en} } @article{HoehleFritzscheBollAvetisyanetal.2021, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Fritzsche, Tom and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Hullebus, Marc and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Respect the surroundings}, series = {JASA Express Letters}, volume = {1}, journal = {JASA Express Letters}, number = {2}, publisher = {AIP Publ.}, address = {Melville}, issn = {2691-1191}, doi = {10.1121/10.0003574}, pages = {7}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Fourteen-month-olds' ability to distinguish a just learned word, /bu?k/, from its minimally different word, /du?k/, was assessed under two pre-exposure conditions: one where /b, d/-initial forms occurred in a varying vowel context and another where the vowel was fixed but the final consonant varied. Infants in the experiments benefited from the variable vowel but not from the variable final consonant context, suggesting that vowel variability but not all kinds of variability are beneficial. These results are discussed in the context of time-honored observations on the vowel-dependent nature of place of articulation cues for consonants.}, language = {en} } @article{MarimonTarterHoehleLangus2022, author = {Marimon Tarter, Mireia and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Langus, Alan}, title = {Pupillary entrainment reveals individual differences in cue weighting in 9-month-old German-learning infants}, series = {Cognition : international journal of cognitive science}, volume = {224}, journal = {Cognition : international journal of cognitive science}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0010-0277}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105054}, pages = {15}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Young infants can segment continuous speech with statistical as well as prosodic cues. Understanding how these cues interact can be informative about how infants solve the segmentation problem. Here we investigate how German-speaking adults and 9-month-old German-learning infants weigh statistical and prosodic cues when segmenting continuous speech. We measured participants' pupil size while they were familiarized with a continuous speech stream where prosodic cues were pitted off against transitional probabilities. Adult participants' changes in pupil size synchronized with the occurrence of prosodic words during the familiarization and the temporal alignment of these pupillary changes was predictive of adult participants' performance at test. Further, 9-month-olds as a group failed to consistently segment the familiarization stream with prosodic or statistical cues. However, the variability in temporal alignment of the pupillary changes at word frequency showed that prosodic and statistical cues compete for dominance when segmenting continuous speech. A followup language development questionnaire at 40 months of age suggested that infants who entrained to prosodic words performed better on a vocabulary task and those infants who relied more on statistical cues performed better on grammatical tasks. Together these results suggest that statistics and prosody may serve different roles in speech segmentation in infancy.}, language = {en} }