Infants show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months. Kuhl, P. K., Stevens, E., Hayashi, A., Deguchi, T., Kiritani, S., & Iverson, P. Developmental Science, 9(2):F13–F21, March, 2006.
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Patterns of developmental change in phonetic perception are critical to theory development. Many previous studies document a decline in nonnative phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. However, much less experimental attention has been paid to developmental change in native-language phonetic perception over the same time period. We hypothesized that language experience in the first year facilitates native-language phonetic performance between 6 and 12 months of age. We tested 6-8- and 10-12-month-old infants in the United States and Japan to examine native and nonnative patterns of developmental change using the American English /r-l/ contrast. The goals of the experiment were to: (a) determine whether facilitation characterizes native-language phonetic change between 6 and 12 months of age, (b) examine the decline previously observed for nonnative contrasts and (c) test directional asymmetries for consonants. The results show a significant increase in performance for the native-language contrast in the first year, a decline in nonnative perception over the same time period, and indicate directional asymmetries that are constant across age and culture. We argue that neural commitment to native-language phonetic properties explains the pattern of developmental change in the first year.
@article{kuhl_infants_2006,
	title = {Infants show a facilitation effect for native language phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months},
	volume = {9},
	issn = {1363-755X},
	doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00468.x},
	abstract = {Patterns of developmental change in phonetic perception are critical to theory development. Many previous studies document a decline in nonnative phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. However, much less experimental attention has been paid to developmental change in native-language phonetic perception over the same time period. We hypothesized that language experience in the first year facilitates native-language phonetic performance between 6 and 12 months of age. We tested 6-8- and 10-12-month-old infants in the United States and Japan to examine native and nonnative patterns of developmental change using the American English /r-l/ contrast. The goals of the experiment were to: (a) determine whether facilitation characterizes native-language phonetic change between 6 and 12 months of age, (b) examine the decline previously observed for nonnative contrasts and (c) test directional asymmetries for consonants. The results show a significant increase in performance for the native-language contrast in the first year, a decline in nonnative perception over the same time period, and indicate directional asymmetries that are constant across age and culture. We argue that neural commitment to native-language phonetic properties explains the pattern of developmental change in the first year.},
	language = {eng},
	number = {2},
	journal = {Developmental Science},
	author = {Kuhl, Patricia K. and Stevens, Erica and Hayashi, Akiko and Deguchi, Toshisada and Kiritani, Shigeru and Iverson, Paul},
	month = mar,
	year = {2006},
	pmid = {16472309},
	keywords = {Age Factors, Cultural Characteristics, Female, Humans, Infant, Japan, Language Development, Male, Phonetics, Speech Perception, United States},
	pages = {F13--F21},
}

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