ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5811-839X
Current Organisation
Universiteit Utrecht
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.JECP.2017.05.013
Abstract: Although statistical learning has been shown to be a domain-general mechanism, its constraints, such as its interactions with perceptual development, are less well understood and discussed. This study is among the first to investigate the distributional learning of lexical pitch in non-tone-language-learning infants, exploring its interaction with language-specific perceptual attunement during the first 2years after birth. A total of 88 normally developing Dutch infants of 5, 11, and 14months were tested via a distributional learning paradigm and were familiarized on a unimodal or bimodal distribution of high-level versus high-falling tones in Mandarin Chinese. After familiarization, they were tested on a tonal contrast that shared equal distributional information in either modality. At 5months, infants in both conditions discriminated the contrast, whereas 11-month-olds showed discrimination only in the bimodal condition. By 14months, infants failed to discriminate the contrast in either condition. Results indicate interplay between infants' long-term linguistic experience throughout development and short-term distributional learning during the experiment, and they suggest that the influence of tonal distributional learning varies along the perceptual attunement trajectory, such that opportunities for distributional learning effects appear to be constrained in the beginning and at the end of perceptual attunement. The current study contributes to previous research by demonstrating an effect of age on learning from distributional cues.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 19-11-2022
Abstract: Previous studies have reported perceptual advantages, such as when discriminating non-native linguistic or musical pitch differences, among first-year infants growing up in bilingual over monolingual environments. It is unclear whether such effects should be attributed to bilinguals’ enhanced perceptual sensitivity and/or cognitive abilities, and whether such effects would extend to adulthood. Twenty-four Dutch, 24 Dutch simultaneous bilingual (DSB), and 24 Chinese Mandarin speakers were examined by three sets of tasks assessing their linguistic pitch and music perception, executive function, as well as interactions across these modalities. Results showed degrees of advantages for DSB and Chinese participants’ over their Dutch peers in lexical tone discrimination and pitch-related music tasks. In tasks related to executive function, no difference was observed between DSB and Dutch participants, while Chinese participants’ performances were modulated by cognitive interference of language processing. Findings suggest that listeners’ enhanced sensitivity to linguistic and musical pitch may stem from acoustic (DSB) and experience (Chinese) rather than cognitive factors. Moreover, Dutch participants showed robust correlations between their linguistic and musical pitch perception, followed by limited correlations in DSB, and virtually no correlation among Chinese participants, illustrating how distinct language experiences can lead to specific pitch perception patterns between language and music.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.INFBEH.2014.12.004
Abstract: Linking the discrimination of voice onset time (VOT) in infancy with infant language background, we examine the perceptual changes of two VOT contrasts (/b/- / and (h)/- /) by Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants from 8 to 15 months of age. Results showed that language exposure and language dominance had a strong impact on monolingual and bilingual infant VOT perceptual patterns. In addition, perceptual turbulence was found at 8-9 months for bilingual infants, and stabilized perception was presented for all infants from 11 months onwards. We thus report a general input-driven developmental VOT perception in both monolingual and bilingual infants, with perceptual turbulence for bilinguals in the second half of the first year of life.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 19-10-2017
Abstract: Previous studies investigating possible differences between monolingual and bilingual infants’ vocabulary development have produced mixed results. The current study examines the size of the total receptive and expressive vocabulary, total conceptual vocabulary, and specific Dutch vocabulary of two hundred 8- to 18-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants born and living in the Netherlands. Families completed a Dutch version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories. Results illustrate that bilingual infants keep up with monolinguals even in Dutch receptive and expressive vocabulary sizes, showing no trace of delay in the development of the socially dominant language. The overall findings constitute an extension of work on vocabulary acquisition and challenge existing theories that suggest a developmental delay among bilingual learners. The equal pace of development between the monolingual and bilingual groups provides new insights into the influence and perhaps advantages of early bilingual language acquisition.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-08-2017
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 15-03-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-11-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2014.06.004
Abstract: This article examines the perception of tones by non-tone-language-learning (non-tone-learning) infants between 5 and 18 months in a study that reveals infants' initial sensitivity to tonal contrasts, deterioration yet plasticity of tonal sensitivity at the end of the first year, and a perceptual rebound in the second year. Dutch infants in five age groups were tested on their ability to discriminate a tonal contrast of Mandarin Chinese as well as a contracted tonal contrast. Infants are able to discriminate tonal contrasts at 5-6 months, and their tonal sensitivity deteriorates at around 9 months. However, the sensitivity rebound sat 17-18 months. Non-tone-learning infants' tonal perception is elastic, as is shown by the influence of acoustic salience and distributional learning: (1) a salient contrast may remain discriminable throughout infancy whereas a less salient one does not (2) a bimodal distribution in tonal exposure increases non-tone-learning infants' discrimination ability during the trough in sensitivity to tonal contrasts at 11-12 months. These novel findings reveal non-tone-learning infants' U-shaped pattern in tone perception, and display their perceptual flexibility.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 05-07-2017
Abstract: This paper examines the nature of categorical perception (CP) effects in Mandarin and Dutch adult listeners through identification and discrimination tasks using lexical tonal contrasts and through the CP index analysis. In identification tasks, Mandarin listeners identify tones in accordance with their native tonal categories whereas Dutch listeners do so based on acoustic properties. In discrimination tasks, Dutch listeners outperform Mandarin listeners especially in tonal steps on the continuum falling within the Mandarin tonal category boundary, whereas Mandarin listeners display high sensitivity in discrimination of stimuli falling across the native boundary. The CP index analysis shows a higher degree of CP in Mandarin (categorical perception) than in Dutch (psycho-acoustic perception) listeners.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 09-03-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-02-2015
Abstract: Facing previous mixed findings between monolingual and bilingual infants’ phonetic development during perceptual reorganization, the current study aims at examining the perceptual development of a native vowel contrast (/I/-/i/) by Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants. We tested 390 Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants from 5 to 15 months of age through a visual habituation paradigm. Mixed-effect model analyses were conducted within 320 infants, with infants’ log 10 transformed looking time as the dependent variable, age (4-level) and language background (2-level) as the fixed factors, and participant and order (2-level) as the random factors. All infants show weak initial sensitivity to the contrast regardless of language background(s), and sensitivity improves with age. By the second half of the first year, infants discriminate the contrast, indicating the emergence of the relevant vowel categories. In addition, a perceptual lead is observed in bilingual infants, probably due to: 1) a perceptual transfer from the close-category counterpart of the other native language 2) heightened acoustic sensitivity in bilingual infants given their rich linguistic experience and 3) a general bilingual cognitive advantage. The influences of contrast salience and bilingualism on language development are discussed. Overall, these findings constitute an extension of existing work on vowel perception and display a novel acceleration effect for the bilingual infants in phonetic perception. In addition, we propose a novel heightened acoustic sensitivity hypothesis, arguing that bilingual infants may pay more attention to acoustic details in the input than their monolingual peers. The observed progressive phonetic discrimination pattern of the native contrast contributes to our knowledge in infant language development, and specifically perceptual reorganization patterns, in the first year after birth. The observed acceleration effect, along with its explanations, provides new insights into the influence of bilingualism and potential bilingual advantages in infancy.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-04-2016
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 23-02-2016
DOI: 10.1017/S1366728916000183
Abstract: This paper examines the ability of bilingual infants who were learning Dutch and another non-tone language to discriminate tonal contrasts. All infants from 5 to 18 months of age succeeded in discriminating a tonal contrast of Mandarin Chinese (Tone 1 versus Tone 4) and showed a U-shaped pattern when facing a less acoustically salient manipulated version (contracted) of the aforementioned contrast. Specifically, infants showed initial sensitivity to the contracted contrast during their early months, followed by a loss of sensitivity at the stage where tonal perceptual reorganization typically occurs, and a sensitivity rebound by the end of the first year after birth. Compared to a previous studying of ours testing monolingual Dutch infants (Liu & Kager, 2014), the discrimination patterns of bilingual infants revealed both similarities and differences. On one hand, as with monolinguals, non-tone-learning bilingual infants’ tonal perception presented plasticity influenced by contrast acoustic salience along the trajectory of perceptual reorganization as well as a general U-shaped perceptual pattern when discriminating non-native tones. On the other hand, bilingual infants appeared to regain sensitivity to the contracted tonal contrast at an earlier age (11–12 months) in comparison with monolinguals infants (17–18 months). We provide several explanations, stemming from the simultaneous exposure to two languages, to account for the 6-month bilingual perceptual plasticity from linguistic and cognitive perspectives. The overall outcomes of the study offer insights into the infant perceptual reorganization and language development trajectory, expand on the differences between monolingual and bilingual language development, and broaden our understanding of the influence of bilingual exposure to the perception of non-native contrasts in infancy from linguistic and cognitive perspectives.
No related grants have been discovered for René Kager.