Some consequences of stimulus variability on speech processing by 2-month-old infants

Abstract

The present study explores how stimulus variability in speech production influences the 2-month-old infant's perception and memory for speech sounds. Experiment 1 focuses on the consequences of talker variability for the infant's ability to detect differences between speech sounds. When tested with high-amplitude sucking (HAS) procedure, infants who listened to versions of a syllable, such as |b∧|, produced by 6 male and 6 female talkers, detected a change to another syllable,