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Audiovisual speech perception in 4-month-old infants Desjardins, Renée Nicole
Abstract
Previous research indicates that for adults and children the perception of speech can be significantly influenced by watching a speaker's mouth movements. For example, hearing the syllable /bi/ while watching a speaker mouth the syllable /vi/ results in reports of a 'heard' /vi/. Some evidence suggests young infants also may be able to integrate heard and seen speech. One theory suggests that an innate link between perception and production (Liberman & Mattingly, 1985) accounts for this phenomenon while another theory suggests that experience (e.g., producing speech sounds) may be necessary into order to develop fully the underlying representation of visible speech (Desjardins, Rogers & Werker, in press; Meltzoff & Kuhl, 1994). My dissertation addresses the above controversy by examining whether the integration of heard and seen speech is obligatory for young infants as it is for adults. In Experiment 1, 4-month-old female infants habituated to audiovisual /bi/ showed renewed visual interest to an auditory /bi/-visual NM suggesting that they may have perceived the auditory /bi/-visual /vi/ as /vi/, as do adults. In Experiment 2, neither male nor female infants showed renewed visual interest to a dishabituation stimulus which represents only a change in mouth movements. In Experiment 3, male infants looked longer to an audiovisual /bi/ than to an audiovisual /vi/ following habituation to an audio /bi/-visual /vi/, while female infants tended to look only slightly longer to an audiovisual /vi/ than to an audiovisual /bi/. Taken together these experiments suggest that at least some infants are able to integrate heard and seen speech, but that they do not do so consistently. Although an innate mechanism may be responsible for integration, a role for experience is suggested as integration does not appear to be obligatory for young infants as it is for adults.
Item Metadata
Title |
Audiovisual speech perception in 4-month-old infants
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
1997
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Description |
Previous research indicates that for adults and children the perception of
speech can be significantly influenced by watching a speaker's mouth movements.
For example, hearing the syllable /bi/ while watching a speaker mouth the syllable
/vi/ results in reports of a 'heard' /vi/. Some evidence suggests young infants also
may be able to integrate heard and seen speech. One theory suggests that an
innate link between perception and production (Liberman & Mattingly, 1985)
accounts for this phenomenon while another theory suggests that experience (e.g.,
producing speech sounds) may be necessary into order to develop fully the
underlying representation of visible speech (Desjardins, Rogers & Werker, in press;
Meltzoff & Kuhl, 1994).
My dissertation addresses the above controversy by examining whether the
integration of heard and seen speech is obligatory for young infants as it is for
adults. In Experiment 1, 4-month-old female infants habituated to audiovisual /bi/
showed renewed visual interest to an auditory /bi/-visual NM suggesting that they
may have perceived the auditory /bi/-visual /vi/ as /vi/, as do adults. In Experiment
2, neither male nor female infants showed renewed visual interest to a
dishabituation stimulus which represents only a change in mouth movements. In
Experiment 3, male infants looked longer to an audiovisual /bi/ than to an
audiovisual /vi/ following habituation to an audio /bi/-visual /vi/, while female infants
tended to look only slightly longer to an audiovisual /vi/ than to an audiovisual /bi/.
Taken together these experiments suggest that at least some infants are
able to integrate heard and seen speech, but that they do not do so consistently.
Although an innate mechanism may be responsible for integration, a role for
experience is suggested as integration does not appear to be obligatory for young
infants as it is for adults.
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Extent |
4305287 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-04-03
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0088069
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
1997-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.