Abstract
In two experiments, we investigated the factors that influence the perceived similarity of speech sounds at two developmental levels. Kindergartners and second graders were asked to classify nonsense words, which were related by syllable and phoneme correspondences. The results support the existence of a developmental trend toward increased attention to individual phonemic segments. Moreover, one significant factor in determining the perceived similarity of speech sounds appears to be the position of the component correspondences; attention to the beginning of utterances may have developmental priority. An unexpected finding was that the linguistic status of the unit involved in a correspondence (whether it was a syllable or a phoneme) did not seem particularly important. Apparently, the factors which contribute to the perceived similarity of speech sounds in the classification task are not identical to those which underlie performance in explicit segmentation and manipulation tasks, since in the latter sort of task, syllables are more accessible than phonemes for young children. The present task may tap a level of processing that is closer to the one entailed in word recognition and lexical access.
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The work reported here was supported by NSF Grants BNS 78-13019 and BNS 81-09888 to the second author; by NSERC (A-0282) and NICHHD (HDNs-15795) grants to the third author; by a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and NSERC (A-1078) grant awarded to the first author; and by NIMH (MH-24027) and NIH (NS-12179) grants.
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Walley, A.C., Smith, L.B. & Jusczyk, P.W. The role of phonemes and syllables in the perceived similarity of speech sounds for children. Memory & Cognition 14, 220–229 (1986). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197696
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197696