Language

Acquisi-on

The Acquisi-on of Language

Copyright 2010 by Ma<hew J. Traxler
 Goals
•  1. Describe na#vist vs. behaviorist approaches
to acquisi-on.
•  2. Describe pre-natal learning and its effects
on speech segmenta-on.
•  3. Describe transi#onal probability learning as
a possible solu-on to the segmenta-on
problem.
•  4. Describe how infants begin to learn the
meanings of words.
 Innate Knowledge?
•  Innate = “ins-nc-ve,” “unlearned”
•  But learning starts before birth
–  2-day old infants can discriminate na-ve from non-
na-ve language (spoken by the same individual).
–  This is the result of pre-natal exposure, not ins-nct.

(Mehler et al., 1988)

 Pre-natal Learning
•  Fetuses respond to environmental sounds in
the 3rd trimester.
•  The loudest environmental sound is mom’s
voice.
•  High-frequencies are blocked; lower
frequencies pass through to the fetus.
•  Babies can learn prosodic features of their
na-ve language in utero.
(DeCasper & Fifer, 1980)
•  Babies Suck
 High-Amplitude Sucking
•  Babies suck: nutri#ve
and non-nutri#ve sucking
•  Amplitude varies
with a<en-on
•  Sucking amplitude over -me:
120

Onset
100

80
Amplitude

60

40

20

Pre-Onset 8 Secs 18 Secs 28 Secs 38 Secs

When “ba” changes to “pa”
120

Onset of "pa"
100

80

60

40

20

Pre-Onset ba ba ba ba pa pa pa

“dishabitua-on”
 HAS Experiments
•  Pregnant mothers read “Cat in the Hat” 2x/
Day for 6 weeks in 3rd trimester.
•  @ 44-60 hours old: tes-ng on familiar vs.
unfamiliar story
•  ½ recorded by mom; ½ recorded by different
female
•  Babies work (suck) harder to hear the familiar
story
(DeCasper & Spence, 1986)
 Heart-Rate Decelera-on Experiments
•  Method: Similar to DeCasper & Spence, 1986, but!
•  Babies are not born yet.
•  Acous-c change causes cardiac decelera#on.
•  Mother recites a nursery rhyme 3x/day for about 4
weeks.
•  At test: Play a recording of familiar and unfamiliar
nursery rhymes.
•  Results: Greater decelera-on when familiar rhyme is
played.
(DeCasper et al., 1994; Krueger et al., 2004)
 Speech Percep-on in Infants:
Categorical Percep-on of Phonemes
•  /pa/ is different than /ba/ because of
“voice-onset -me”.
100

90

80

70

60
% "b"

50

40

30

20

10

VOT=0 VOT=30 VOT=60 VOT=90

 2 s-muli: VOT = 10 and
VOT = 40
120

100

VOT=10
80
Amplitude

60

40
VOT=40

20

Eimas et al., 1971

 2 s-muli: VOT = 40 and
VOT = 60
120

100

VOT=40
80

VOT=60
Amplitude

60

40

20

Dishabitua-on
 Speech Percep-on in Infants
•  Infants perceive speech sounds categorically.
•  Infants also perceive non-speech sounds, such as
plucked vs. bowed strings categorically.
•  Categorical percep-on of speech is not likely the
result of a gene-cally determined, naturally
selected, speech percep-on mechanism.



(Eimas et al., 1971; Cukng & Rosner, 1974; Jusczyk et al., 1977; 1980)
 But!
•  Infants prefer speech to equally complex non-
speech sounds
•  And: Deaf and hearing infants prefer real
sign-language gestures to equally complex
“pantomime” gestures
•  So: “Pay a<en-on to language” may be
innate & selected.

(Jusczyk, 1997; Jusczyk & Bertoncini, 1988; Krentz & Corina,
2008)
 Innately Guided Learning Hypothesis
•  The child has an innate drive to a<end to speech
and to analyze it in detail.
•  The ini-al state of the learning mechanism must
be general enough to enable the acquisi-on of
any language.
•  "The infant is innately prewired
with broad categories that may
develop in one of several
different direc-ons.”
(Jusczyk & Bertoncini, p. 233)
Peter W. Jusczyk, Ph.D.
 Evidence for Innate Broad Categories
Phoneme Discrimina-on in Infants:

–  (American) English babies disciminate between /r/ and /l/.

–  So do Japanese babies.

–  So do all other babies that we know of.

–  Babies lose non-na-ve contrasts at about 6 – 8 months

(but see Robin Cooper).

(Werker et al., 1981; Werker & Tees, 1983, 2002)
 Innate Broad Categories
•  Help make languages “learnable” by infants.
•  Infants eventually figure out which phonological
contrasts are important (r vs. l in English; but not
+aspirated vs. –aspirated).
•  How?
–  Perhaps by developing “prototype” representa-ons.
•  E.g., English and Swedish “ee” are pronounced differently.
•  English infants respond to minor devia-ons from English
“ee,” but not equally small devia-ons from Swedish “ee.”
(Kuhl et al., 2006)
 Speech Segmenta-on
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 Segmenta-on
•  Only 10% of IDS words are spoken in isola-on (range =
5-17%). (Brent & Siskind, 2001; Fernald & Morikawa, 1983)
•  6-60 isolated words/hour in the input.
•  See-n-say? 28% IF mothers are explicitly asked to
teach new words.
•  Words heard in isola-on make up a large frac-on of
first 50 words.
•  BUT! Children learn words that have never appeared
in isola-on; embedding words in fluent speech can
help learning.
(Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995; Boryeld et al., 2005; Fernald & Hurtado, 2006; Saffran, 2001).
 Segmenta-on
–  Segmenta-on starts @ 6-7.5 months old.
–  Data = condi#oned head turn procedure.
•  Auditory s#mulus depends on infant’s gaze loca#on.
•  Exposure to isolated words.
•  Tes#ng with familiar and unfamiliar words embedded
in sentences.
•  Between 6 and 7.5 months, infants start listening
longer to exposed (familiar) words.
 Segmenta-on
•  Prosodic Bootstrapping:
–  Infants use prosody to iden-fy important units (syllables
and words).
–  Prosodic pa<erns are discriminated at 2 months old (or
younger).
•  “Night rates” vs. “nitrates"
–  E.g., spoken stress pa<erns
•  English is biased towards trochaic (strong-weak-strong-weak)

“WHAT a PRE<y BAby!”

–  Metrical Segmenta#on Strategy: loud = onset

 Segmenta-on
•  Prosodic Bootstrapping, Metrical Segmenta-on Strategy:
–  ERP studies, oddball paradigm – iambic standard,
trochaic oddball
–  4 months old: same ERP signal for standard and
oddballs (Weber et al., 2004)
–  5 months old: oddball wave in ERP signal
•  Sensi-vity to stress emerges over -me.
•  This is good: French has iambic stress.
•  Infants apply learned strategy to new situa-ons (e.g.,
English infants exposed to Dutch).
•  MSS leads to errors: taris is a word if an infant hears
“MY guiTAR is BROken.” (less than 10 months old)
•  Arer 10 months old, infants are able to correctly
segment iambic words. (Jusczyk et al., 1999)
 Going Beyond the MSS
•  Use known words as landmarks.
–  Infants @ 6 months learn words that follow familiar
words -- “Mommy’s CUP” (Boryeld et al., 2005)
•  Use Phonotac#c Informa-on
–  gp is impossible as an onset in English
–  but it can be an offset + an onset (pigpen, bagpipes,
magpie)
–  spl is impossible as an offset, but is OK as an onset
–  thisplace è “this | place” or “thisp | lace”
–  This ability emerges ~ 7.5 – 9 months

(Jusczyk et al., 1993, 1994)
 Infant-Directed Speech
•  Exaggerated ar#cula#on and prosody; higher and more
variable pitch
•  Infants prefer IDS
•  Children of IDS-speaking mothers have be<er
phoneme discrimina-on abili-es @ 6 months
•  Topic words appear in prominent posi-ons and are
marked prosodically
•  Children of depressed mothers lag behind other
children in learning new words (at least in the early
stages of word learning)
•  Not all cultures have IDS (e.g., Quiche Mayan); but it
helps where it is present

(Cooper & Aslin, 1990, 1994; Fernald & Mazzie, 1991; Werker & McLeod, 1989; Liu et
al., 2003; Thiessen et al., 2005)
 Early Word Learning:
Experience Ma<ers
•  There are major differences in the amount of speech that is
directed towards infants and small children: ~30 million word gap
between children of white-collar & impoverished parents.
•  Within SES groups, maternal educa-on affects amount of infant-
directed speech.
•  Some infants are be<er at recognizing familiar words than others;
as indicated by gaze to targets; in both speed and accuracy.
•  Performance at 6 months predicts performance at 24 months.
•  Individual differences largely reflect exposure/prac-ce effects.

•  Talk to babies!

(Fernald et al., 2001; 2006; Hurtado et al., 2007; Marchman & Fernald, 2008; Pan et al., 2005; Swingley
et al., 1999; Tsao et al., 2004)
 Sta-s-cal Learning: An Alterna-ve
Route to Segmenta-on
•  Between-word transi-ons are lower probability than within-word
transi-ons.
•  Probability of / -/ arer / pri/ in IDS ~ 80%
•  Do infants capitalize on this feature?

•  Training Studies:
–  Training phase: Infants listen to extended sequences of nonsense syllables

lum jik pel rud neb jik pel lum neb

Pel always follows jik; jik always precedes pel: transi-on probability = 100%

rud follows pel 30% of the -me; pel precedes rud 30% of the -me: transi-on
probability = 30T%

•  S-muli are synthesized, so no prosodic cues.

(Saffran, 2001, 2003, 2004; Saffran et al., 1996; Thiessen & Saffran, 2003b; see McMurray & Hollich, 2009).
 Sta-s-cal Learning
•  Training Studies:
–  Test Phase
•  present “jikpel” (word) or “pelrud” (non-word)
•  See whether infants show evidence of familiarity
•  Infants respond to “words” differently than “non-words”
•  So, they were able to segment speech by using transi-onal
probabili-es
•  Works with real words from foreign languages, too (e.g.,
American infants listening to Italian speech).
•  Works for other kinds of pa<erns, too (e.g.,…)

(Pelucchi et al., 2009)

(Saffran et al.,
2007)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Children start to speak ~ 12 months.
•  They leave high school knowing ~ 50 to 60,000
words.
•  That computes to ~ 10 words/day; ~1 per waking
hour.
•  It takes about 18 months to learn 50 words
(produc-ve vocabulary); then infants have a
word spurt.

(Paul Bloom)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Overcoming the poverty of the s#mulus problem:
–  words do not contain enough informa-on to uniquely
specify meaning (Brown, 1957; Quine, 1960):
gavagai!

–  Solu-ons?
•  Point and say (Clark, 2002; Skinner, 1957)
•  Many early words refer to concrete objects (Brown, 1957)
•  But other words like gree-ngs (Hi!) impera-ves (NO!),
substances (milk), and processes (think), do not.
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Other problems for point-n-say:
–  People do not refer to on-going ac-ons
–  And meaning depends on perspec-ve of speaker,
not child:

•  e.g., chase vs. flee

–  And: blind children learn word meanings at about

the same rate as sighted children (!)
(Landau & Gleitman, 1985)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solu-ons to POS?
–  Innate categories (Pinker): e.g., noun vs. verb
–  + “try noun meaning first” strategy
–  Accounts for cross-linguis-c noun bias

–  If so, “gavagai” is not an ac-on.

–  A<ach to some salient perceptual experience (perhaps an object)
–  Doesn’t solve problem, because objects belong to mul-ple categories
simultaneously
Flopsy è Jackrabbit è Rabbit è Rodent (?) è Mammal è Animal è Thing
–  Also, doesn’t rule out parts that are nouns
•  Ear, tail, fur,…
–  Possible solu-on: keep track of mul-ple episodes
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solu-ons to POS? General-Purpose Learning
Mechanisms.
–  Adults and children have very good memory for
arbitrary facts conveyed by language
•  E.g., see an object, either hear “it’s a koba” or “it was
given to me by my uncle”
•  1 Month Later: children remember the linguis-cally
conveyed info.
•  But if s-ckers were used: They didn’t rememer which
object had a s-cker.
(Markson & Bloom, 1997; Swingley & Fernald, 2002)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solving the POS: heuris-cs and biases?
–  e.g., “treat every new word as being super-
general” (e.g., “thing”)
–  e.g., “treat every new word as though it applied only
to the specific object labeled” (e.g., “Ma<hew James
Traxler, SSN 432-90-4121)”

–  BUT: children appear to assume that labels refer to

basic level categories
•  Chesterfield – chair – furniture
•  Ford Mustang – car – vehicle
•  thoroughbred – horse – hooved ungulate

(Masur, 1997; for categoriza-on: Rosch & Mervis, 1975)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solving the POS: heuris-cs and biases?
–  Basic-level category bias assumes that children have adult-
like categories.
–  Over- and under-extension suggest that they oren do not:
•  “doggie” = “dog, cat, horse, pig, elephant… “ (over-extension)
•  “car” = “only cars that I can see from my front window” (under-
extension)

–  Category and vocabulary knowledge both change over

-me; conceptual knowledge may lead vocabulary.

(Markson et al., 2008)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solving the POS: Other Strategies
–  whole-object bias:
•  1st label = whole object
–  mutual exclusivity: two labels refer to two different objects
(no synonyms)
•  New label = new object
•  Test: familiar and unfamiliar object, if speaker uses unfamiliar
word, child assigns to unfamiliar object.
–  principle of contrast: If 2 labels do apply to the same
object, then they must have different meanings.
•  1st label = whole object, 2nd label = salient part or property
–  “See the bunny? These are his ears.”

(Saylor et al., 2002; Markman & Wachtel, 1988)

 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solving the POS: Referen#al/inten#onality
assump#on
–  Children need to understand speakers’ inten-ons to
assign correct meanigns to words.
–  This is an aspect of theory of mind.
–  Can account for differences in word-learning between
au-s-c (abnormal TOM) children & children with
Williams Syndrome (intact TOM)
–  Shared a<en-on may also be important (e.g.,
recognizing speaker’s gaze loca-on)

(Baldwin et al., 1996; Bloom, 2000)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Solving the POS: TOM/Social Cogni-ve Influences
–  Children understand that speakers can refer to
objects that the speaker cannot see
–  Children give greater weight to “reliable” speakers

–  Word learning ≠ reflexive sound-object associa-on.

(Nurmsoo & Bloom, 2008; Birch et al., 2008; Birch & Bloom, 2002;
Sabbagh & Baldwin, 2001)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Syntac#c Bootstrapping
–  Children can use sentence context to constrain
possible meanings of new words
–  Nouns vs. verbs:
•  “In this picture you can see sibbing/sib.”
–  Different kinds of nouns: count vs. mass
•  “In this picture you can see a/some sib.”
•  “In this picture I see Ø/a sib.”

(Brown, 1957; Fisher, 1996; Gleitman, 1990)

 Learning Word Meanings
•  Syntac-c Bootstrapping: Different kinds of verbs

•  (1) She blicked!

•  (2) She blicked her!

•  Test: Find blicking!

(Yuan & Fisher, 2009)
 Learning Word Meanings
•  Syntac-c bootstrapping and “proto-syntax”:
–  Children develop conceptual representa-ons of
events (e.g., actor, acted-upon, event/rela-on)

–  Alignment: Children develop and test hypotheses

about how linguis-c units map onto those (non-
linguis-c) conceptual representa-ons.
–  Knowledge of nouns bootstraps acquisi-on of
syntac-c forms è isolate nouns, map nouns to agent
& pa-ent roles, what’s ler is the verb.

(Fisher, 2002; See also L. Gleitman)

 Review
•  1. Children start to learn about language before
birth.
•  2. Children have some innate speech percep-on
abili-es (e.g., phoneme discrimina-on).
•  3. Infants may use prosodic cues and/or
transi-onal probabili-es to segment speech.
•  4. See-n-say is not sufficient to explain
acquisi-on of word meanings.
•  5. Theory of mind ability, (non-linguis-c)
conceptual development, heuris-cs and biases all
contribute to acquisi-on of word meanings.