Native and non-native vowel discrimination in 6-month-old Norwegian infants

In the current preregistered study, we tested n = 67 6-month-old Norwegian infants’ discrimination of a native vowel contrast /y-i/ and a non-native (British) vowel contrast /ʌ-æ/ in an eye-tracking habituation paradigm. Our results showed that, on a group level, infants did not discriminate either...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infant behavior & development 2024-12, Vol.77, p.101992, Article 101992
Main Authors: Rosslund, Audun, Mayor, Julien, Cristia, Alejandrina, Kartushina, Natalia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Eye-tracking
Habituation
Perceptual narrowing
Speech perception
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Summary:In the current preregistered study, we tested n = 67 6-month-old Norwegian infants’ discrimination of a native vowel contrast /y-i/ and a non-native (British) vowel contrast /ʌ-æ/ in an eye-tracking habituation paradigm. Our results showed that, on a group level, infants did not discriminate either contrast. Yet, exploratory analyses revealed a negative association between infants’ performance in each experiment, that is, better discrimination of the native contrast was associated with worse discrimination of the non-native contrast. Potentially, infants in this study might have been on the cusp of perceptual reorganisation towards their native language. •We examined 6-month-old Norwegian infants’ perceptual narrowing in vowel contrasts.•Infants were tested using an eye-tracking visual habituation paradigm.•Infants did not discriminate the native /y-i/ or the non-native /ʌ-æ/.•Exploratory analyses revealed a correlation of native and non-native discrimination.•Infants in our study might be on the cusp of perceptual reorganisation.
ISSN:0163-6383
DOI:10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101992