TY - GEN A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Fritzsche, Tom A1 - Meß, Katharina A1 - Philipp, Mareike A1 - Gafos, Adamantios I. T1 - Only the right noise? BT - Effects of phonetic and visual input variability on 14-month-olds' minimal pair word learning T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 868 KW - acoustic variability KW - habituation-switch paradigm KW - infant word learning KW - minimal pairs KW - phonological development KW - visual variability Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-516674 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Fritzsche, Tom A1 - Meß, Katharina A1 - Philipp, Mareike A1 - Gafos, Adamantios I. T1 - Only the right noise? BT - Effects of phonetic and visual input variability on 14-month-olds' minimal pair word learning JF - Developmental Science N2 - 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. KW - acoustic variability KW - habituation-switch paradigm KW - infant word learning KW - minimal pairs KW - phonological development KW - visual variability Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12950 SN - 1363-755X SN - 1467-7687 VL - 23 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Fritzsche, Tom A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Hullebus, Marc A1 - Gafos, Adamantios I. T1 - Respect the surroundings BT - effects of phonetic context variability on infants' learning of minimal pairs JF - JASA Express Letters N2 - 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. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003574 SN - 2691-1191 VL - 1 IS - 2 PB - AIP Publ. CY - Melville ER -