Divergent developmental patterns for infants' perception of two nonnative consonant contrasts

摘要: Abstract Young infants discriminate nonnative and native consonant contrast, yet 10–12-month-olds most contrasts poorly, like adults. However, English-speaking adults 6–14 month-old Zulu clicks, consistent with a model predicting that listeners who have phonology assimilate consonants to categories when possible but hear non-assimilable (NA) as nonspeech sounds (Best, McRoberts, & Sithole, 1988). Non-assimilable contrasts, thus, avoid language-specific effects are discriminated, whereas assimilated equally into single category (SC) discriminated poorly by showing influences; other assimilation patterns show poor excellent discrimination. This study directly compared discrimination of NA clicks SC ejectives 6–8- conditioned fixation habituation procedure. Consistent predictions, the younger group both contrats control English older only contrasts.