Abstract
We examined whether children modify their perceptual weighting strategies for speech on the basis of the order of segments within a syllable, as adults do. To this end, fricative-vowel (FV) and vowel-fricative (VF) syllables were constructed with synthetic noises from an /∫/-to-/s/ continuum combined with natural /a/ and /u / portions with transitions appropriate for a preceding or a following /∫/ or /s/. Stimuli were played in their original order to adults and children (ages of 7 and 5 years) in Experiment 1 and in reversed order in Experiment 2. The results for adults and, to a lesser extent, those for 7-year-olds replicated earlier results showing that adults assign different perceptual weights to acoustic properties, depending on segmental order. In contrast, results for 5-year-olds suggested that these listeners applied the same strategies during fricative labeling, regardless of segmental order. Thus, the flexibility to modify perceptual weighting strategies for speech according to segmental order apparently emerges with experience.
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This work was supported by Grant 5 R01 DC 00633 from the National Institutes of Health to the first author. Nancy Luke and John Schneider helped collect data for the first experiment. Stephen T. Neely provided the algorithm for reversing samples within stimuli. Donna Neff, Douglas Keefe, Janet Werker, and two anonymous reviewers provided useful suggestions regarding this manuscript.
—Accepted by previous editor, Myron L. Braunstein
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Nittrouer, S., Miller, M.E., Crowther, C.S. et al. The effect of segmental order on fricative labeling by children and adults. Perception & Psychophysics 62, 266–284 (2000). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205548
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205548