Peter Eimas and his colleagues (1971) studied speech perception in infants using a combination of high amplitude sucking and habituation. In their procedure they would habituate infants to one sound, such as a “pa” sound, and then test them both on a novel “ba” sound and to a novel "pa" sound. Using this method, what have researchers found about infant speech perception?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

In analyzing this classic study on infant speech perception, I’ll evaluate each option in light of what Eimas and colleagues demonstrated and the broader literature on perceptual development in infancy.
Option 1: 'Between birth and 1 month of age, infants from all language cultures can hear the distinctions between sounds from all languages.' This statement overstates the uniformity and persistence of non-native sound discrimination. Newborns do show a remarkable ability to discriminate many phonetic contrasts across languages, but the claim that they hear distinctions from all languages between birth and 1 month is too broad and not precisely supported by the specific habituation findings, which show sensitivity to contrasts but do not imply universal discrimination for all languages at that narrow early window.
Option 2: 'At birth, infants are unable to hear the distinctions between any languages.' This is incorrect. The evidence from Eimas and others indicates that newborns can perceive and discriminate a range of speech sounds, including contrasts that are not present in their native language, so saying they are unable to hear distinctions at birth is false.
Option 3: 'Between 6 and 12 months, infants begin to lose the ability to hear speech distinctions not used in the language they are learning.' This captures a key developmental trend known as perceptual narrowing: as infants are exposed more to their native language, they become less capable of distinguishing non-native contrasts. It states a loss of non-native distinctions in a window that aligns with the developmental literature, though one could nuance the exact timing. Overall, it correctly describes a decline in sensitivity to non-native contrasts over the first year.
Option 4: 'As infants learn a particular language, they acquire the ability to hear the sounds of that language.' This reflects the idea of perceptual tuning to native phonetic categories as exposure increases; it is consistent with the concept that experience with the native language shapes perception. While this is true in a developmental sense, it doesn’t directly summarize the early habituation findings about the existence of broader non-native discrimination and the later narrowing process.
In summary, Option 2 is clearly incorrect due to misrepresenting newborn perception. Option 1 overclaims the scope of early discrimination. Option 3 accurately captures the perceptual narrowing process observed as infants age and become more specialized in their native language contrasts. Option 4 describes an important aspect of developmental tuning but is more focused on the outcome of learning a language rather than the specific experimental findings of early habituation and discrimination shown by Eimas. The best-matched interpretation to the described method and findings is the idea of narrowing of non-native distinctions during the first year, which aligns with the observed shift in sensitivity over time.

类似问题

As described in lecture, "universal adaptability" refers to what phenomena?

Peter Eimas and his colleagues used the High Amplitude Sucking, or HAS, procedure. How do researchers measure infants' speech perception using this procedure?

A 62.9 kg lady is standing on a weighing scale in an elevator as shown in the diagram below. Assume gravitational acceleration = 15 ms-2 Given that the elevator is accelerating upwards at 3.7 ms-2 , determine the magnitude of the normal force on the lady.

An object is fired from ground level at an angle of 31.9 degrees to the horizontal. Taking acceleration due to gravity = 7.65 ms-2 If the initial speed is 5.6 ms-1, how far from the starting point will it hit the ground? Assume air resistance is negligible.

Which of the following equations of motion would be used to calculate the displacement given the initial and final velocities as well as the acceleration?

A 51.8 kg lady is standing on a weighing scale (calibrated to 9.81 ms-2) in an elevator as shown in the diagram below. The scale is then calibrated to 7.67 ms-2 Given that the elevator is accelerating downwards at 2.2 ms-2 , determine the reading on the scale.

An object is fired from ground level at an angle of 39 degrees to the horizontal. Taking acceleration due to gravity = 7.65 ms-2 If the initial speed is 6.8 ms-1, how far from the starting point will it hit the ground? Assume air resistance is negligible.

Which of the following equations of motion would be used to calculate the displacement given the initial and final velocities as well as the time taken?

更多留学生实用工具

智能学习助手

风格化写作助手

论文查重助手

文献引用助手

课堂转译助手

课堂笔记助手

Quiz搜索助手

学校历年真题

智能刷题助手

智能匹配练习

希望你的学习变得更简单