Cross-language study of speech-pattern learning

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Abstract
Synthetic speechlike stimuli were played to groups of English and French children between 4 and 14 yr of age. The acoustic parameters varied were voice onset time [VOT] and first-formant transition. Three stages were observed in the development of children''s labeling behavior. These were called scattered labeling, progressive labeling and categorical labeling, respectively. Individual response patterns were examined. The 1st stage (scattered labeling) includes mostly children of 2-3 yr of age for the English and up to about 4 for the French. Children label most confidently those stimuli closest in physical terms to those of their natural speech environment. All stimuli with intermediate VOT values are labeled quasirandomly. Progressive labeling behavior is found mostly among children aged 3 and 4 for the English, up to about 7 for the French. Children''s response curves go progressively (almost linearly) from one type of label (voiced) to the other (voiceless): response follows stimulus continuum. Categorical labeling becomes the dominant pattern only at the age of 5-6 for the English 1 or 2 yr later for the French. This development was highly significant. English children learn to make use of the F1 transition feature around 5 yr, whereas French children never use it as a voicing cue. French children will have fewer features than English children at their disposal; this may account for the later age at which French children, as a group, reach the various labeling behavior stages, and for labeling curves being less sharply categorical for French than for English children. Categorical labeling for speech sounds is not innate but learned through a relatively slow process which is to a certain extent language specific.

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