Could temporal order differences underlie 2-month-olds' discrimination of English voicing contrasts?

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that infants discriminate voice onset time (VOT) differences for certain speech contrasts categorically. In addition, investigations of nonspeech processing by infants also yield evidence of categorical discrimination of temporal-order differences. These findings have led some researchers to argue that common auditory mechanisms underlie the infant's discrimination of timing differences in speech and nonspeech contrasts [e.g., Jusczyk et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 67, 262-270 (1980)]. Nevertheless, some discrepancies in the location of the infant's category boundaries for different kinds of contrasts have been noted [e.g., Eilers et al. (1980)]. Because different procedures were used to study the different kinds of contrasts, interpretation of the discrepancies between the studies has been difficult. In the present study, three different continua were examined: [ba]-[pa] stimuli, which differed in VOT; [du]-[tu] stimuli, which differed in VOT but which lacked format transitions; nonspeech formant onset time (FOT) stimuli that varied in the time that lower harmonics increased in amplitude. An experiment with adults indicated a close match between the perceptual boundaries for the three series. Similarly, tests with 2-month-old infants using high amplitude sucking procedure yielded estimates of perceptual category boundaries at between 20 and 40 ms for all three stimulus series.