Basic word segmentation abilities emerge earlier in infancy than previously thought.

Abstract

English‐learning 7.5‐ but not 6‐month‐olds extract word forms from fluent speech (Jusczyk et al., 1999). Thus, English learners are thought to begin segmenting words from speech by 7.5 months. However, recent research has shown that when target words are flanked by a frequent and emotionally salient word (e.g., the infant’s name), even 6‐month‐olds can extract words from speech (e.g., Bortfeld et al., 2005). This suggests that basic word segmentation capabilities may emerge earlier than past studies have suggested. Using the Headturn Preference Procedure, we tested 6‐month‐olds’ ability to segment utterance‐flanked words from speech, e.g., “geff” from “At the circus we met a silly geff.” Infants were familiarized with passages containing target words in utterance initial and final position, and then tested on their recognition of these words in isolation. A significant looking time difference to familiar versus unfamiliar words was found, indicating that 6‐month‐olds segmented the target words from speech. Six‐month‐olds’ success at segmenting utterance‐flanked words from speech is particularly interesting because infant‐directed speech consists of short utterances containing many utterance‐flanked words. Segmentation of utterance‐flanked words could help infants learn the cues needed to extract harder utterance‐medial words from speech (see Seidl and Johnson, 2006).