Abstract
Individual data were obtained from eight normal 6-month-old infants on discrimination of eight synthetic labial stop pairs differentiable on the basis of voice onset time. All infants were presented with the pairs pha (+40) versus pha (+70), pha (+40) versus pa (+10), ba (+10) versus ba (−20), ba (−20) versus ba (−50), ba (−20) versus ba (−60), ba (−30) versus ba (−60), pa (0) versus ba (−30) and pa (+10) versus ba (−60). Discrimination was assessed for each infant on each pair using the VRISD paradigm (Visually Reinforced Infant Speech Discrimination). Adult discrimination was assessed for the same pairs in the same manner. With few exceptions, infants presented no evidence of discrimination of pairs other than the pair pha (+40) versus pa (+10) despite the fact that these infants were successful in the same paradigm with a variety of subtle natural speech contrasts. Contrary to the hypothesis that age restricts discrimination capacities, adults were far more successful than infants in discriminating the non-English contrasts. Individual data will be presented to illustrate these points and the use of synthetic speech stimuli in infant research will be discussed in light of these data. [Works supported by NIH-NICHD, HD-3-2793.]
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