Infants master temporal patterns of their native language at a developmental trajectory from slow to fast: Shortly after birth, they recognize the slow acoustic modulations specific to their native ...language before tuning into faster language-specific patterns between 6 and 12 months of age. We propose here that this trajectory is constrained by neuronal maturation—in particular, the gradual emergence of high-frequency neural oscillations in the infant electroencephalogram. Infants’ initial focus on slow prosodic modulations is consistent with the prenatal availability of slow electrophysiological activity (i.e., theta- and delta-band oscillations). Our proposal is consistent with the temporal patterns of infant-directed speech, which initially amplifies slow modulations, approaching the faster modulation range of adult-directed speech only as infants’ language has advanced sufficiently. Moreover, our proposal agrees with evidence from premature infants showing maturational age is a stronger predictor of language development than ex utero exposure to speech, indicating that premature infants cannot exploit their earlier availability of speech because of electrophysiological constraints. In sum, we provide a new perspective on language acquisition emphasizing neuronal development as a critical driving force of infants’ language development.
•Native speakers differ considerably in their mastery of basic grammatical constructions.•Individual differences in grammar are comparable in size to those in lexical knowledge.•Individual ...differences are related to both quality of the input and learner’s cognitive abilities.•Grammatical and lexical knowledge are correlated even in adult speakers.
Several recent studies have demonstrated that some native speakers do not fully master some fairly basic grammatical constructions of their language, thus challenging the widely-held assumption that all native speakers converge on the same grammar. This study investigates the extent of individual differences in adult native speakers' knowledge of a range of constructions as well as vocabulary size and collocational knowledge, and explores the relationship between these three aspects of linguistic knowledge and four nonlinguistic predictors: nonverbal IQ, language aptitude, print exposure and education. Individual differences in grammatical attainment were comparable to those observed for vocabulary and collocations; furthermore, performance on tests assessing speakers' knowledge of these three aspects of language was correlated (rs from 0.38 to 0.57). Two of the nonlinguistic measures, print exposure and education, were found to contribute to variance in all three language tests, albeit to different extents. In addition, nonverbal IQ was found to be relevant for grammar and vocabulary, and language aptitude for grammar. These findings are broadly compatible with usage-based models of language and problematic for modular theories.
A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages ...are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages, with the majority of non-Indo-European languages having just one paper. A majority of the papers focused on studies of monolingual children, although papers did not always explicitly report participant group status. The distribution of topics across language categories was more even. The number of articles published on non-Indo-European languages from countries outside of North America and Europe is increasing; however, this increase is driven by research conducted in relatively wealthy countries. Overall, the vast majority of the research was produced in the Global North. We conclude that, despite a proud history of crosslinguistic research, the goals of the discipline need to be recalibrated before we can lay claim to truly a representative account of child language acquisition.
Purpose
The first of two experiments investigated the effect that speaking in a non‐native language has on interviewees’ perceptions of their interview experience. A second experiment investigated ...evaluators’ perceptions of the credibility of interviewees who spoke in their native or non‐native language.
Method
For the first experiment, 52 participants told the truth or lied about their identity during a mock border control interview. All of the participants were interviewed in English, for half of the sample this was their native language, and for the other half of the sample English was not their native tongue. Post‐interview, all participants completed a self‐report questionnaire relating to their perceptions of their interview experience. For the second experiment, 128 participants evaluated the credibility of interviewees from the first experiment. The modality of presentation of interview clips was varied and included ‘Visual and Audio’, ‘Visual Only’, ‘Audio Only’, and ‘Transcript Only’.
Results
Non‐native speakers were more likely than native speakers to report being nervous and cognitively challenged during their interviews and were more likely to monitor their own behaviour. Overall, evaluators were better able to distinguish between truth tellers and liars who were speaking in their native language than between truth tellers and liars who were non‐native speakers. Relative to native speakers, there was a smaller truth bias for evaluations of non‐native speakers. When evaluators were considering the non‐native speakers, they achieved higher discrimination accuracy when they were exposed to ‘Visual Only’ or ‘Transcript Only’ presentations than when they were shown the ‘Visual and Audio’ or ‘Audio Only’ interview clips.
Conclusions
Self‐reported experiences of a mock border control interview differed dependent on whether interviewees were speaking in their native or non‐native language. Discrimination accuracy was better for native speakers than it was for non‐native speakers and was at its worst when evaluators heard the accents of the non‐native speakers.
As children learn their mother tongues, they make systematic errors. For example, English-speaking children regularly say mouses rather than mice. Because children's errors are not explicitly ...corrected, it has been argued that children could never learn to make the transition to adult language based on the evidence available to them, and thus that learning even simple aspects of grammar is logically impossible without recourse to innate, language-specific constraints. Here, we examine the role children's expectations play in language learning and present a model of plural noun learning that generates a surprising prediction: at a given point in learning, exposure to regular plurals (e.g. rats) can decrease children's tendency to overregularize irregular plurals (e.g. mouses). Intriguingly, the model predicts that the same exposure should have the opposite effect earlier in learning. Consistent with this, we show that testing memory for items with regular plural labels contributes to a decrease in irregular plural overregularization in six-year-olds, but to an increase in four-year-olds. Our model and results suggest that children's overregularization errors both arise and resolve themselves as a consequence of the distribution of error in the linguistic environment, and that far from presenting a logical puzzle for learning, they are inevitable consequences of it.
Taza in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish: copa and vaso. It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early ...perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. In this study, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on preattentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, copas, and vasos flashed in streams. Visual mismatch negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in the participants’ native language but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was modulated only for missing contrasts in the participants’ native language. Thus, whereas native labels influenced participants’ preattentive perceptual encoding of objects, nonverbally encoded dissociations reoriented their attention at a later processing stage.
A one‐page Accessible Summary of this article in non‐technical language is freely available in the Supporting Information online and at https://oasis‐database.org
Can our native language influence what we consciously perceive? Although evidence that language modulates visual discrimination has been accumulating, little is known about the relation between ...language structure and consciousness. We employed electroencephalography and the attentional-blink paradigm, in which targets are often unnoticed. Native Greek speakers (N = 28), who distinguish categorically between light and dark shades of blue, showed boosted perception for this contrast compared with a verbally unmarked green contrast. Electrophysiological signatures of early visual processing predicted this behavioral advantage. German speakers (N = 29), who have only one category for light and dark shades of blue, showed no differences in perception between blue and green targets. The behavioral consequence of categorical perception was replicated with Russian speakers (N = 46), reproducing this novel finding. We conclude that linguistic enhancement of color contrasts provides targets with a head start in accessing visual consciousness. Our native language is thus one of the forces that determine what we consciously perceive.
Human newborns can propel themselves to their mother's breast when positioned skin to skin on her abdomen just after birth. For decades, researchers have considered this primitive crawling behavior a ...spinal reflex, immune to supra spinal control. However, recent research suggests that neonatal crawling is already responsive to visual and olfactory stimuli processed at a supra spinal level. Here we report that a few hours post birth, French newborns can also modulate their crawling in response to their native language – a source of information that is processed supra‐spinally. The crawling patterns of 23 French‐born newborns were recorded on video and via an infrared motion capture system during two randomly ordered 2‐min trials. The newborns were secured on a mini skateboard to facilitate arm and leg movements during their crawling propulsion. They heard a repetitive sequence of the same sentences either in French, their native language, or in English, a rhythmically different and hence discriminable unfamiliar language, on each trial. In French, compared to English, crawling was enhanced, with significantly more arm and leg steps and significantly more and larger trunk rotations in the cephalo‐caudal axis. Moreover, newborns rotated their heads and trunk toward the appropriate loud speaker when hearing French but not English. These preliminary findings suggest that newborn crawling is not a simple stereotyped reflex under spinal control, but a complex pattern that can be modulated in response to higher‐order, supra‐spinally processed stimuli. The findings open fascinating questions about the range of stimuli to which newborn crawling is responsive.
Most models of lexical access assume that bilingual speakers activate their two languages even when they are in a context in which only one language is used. A critical piece of evidence used to ...support this notion is the observation that a given word automatically activates its translation equivalent in the other language. Here, we argue that these findings are compatible with a different account, in which bilinguals “carry over” the structure of their native language to the non‐native language during learning, and where there is no activation of translation equivalents. To demonstrate this, we describe a model in which language learning involves mapping native language phonological relationships to the non‐native language, and we show how it can explain the results attributed to automatic activation of translation equivalents.
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