Marina Kalashnikova | Infant-directed speech: An optimal signal for language processing in young infants
Language Circle
- Date: May 17, 2023
- Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Marina Kalashnikova
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
- Location: MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Room: Wilhelm Wundt Room (A400) + Zoom Meeting (hybrid mode)
- Host: Max Planck Research Group Language Cycles
Please join using this link: https://zoom.us/j/95065830000
During their first months of life, infants language input consists primarily of infant-directed
speech (IDS), a speech register that is structurally, prosodically, and acoustically different from
adult-directed speech (ADS). IDS is a dynamic register: infants preferences and responses to
IDS evolve as they develop more mature linguistic abilities, and caregivers, in turn, adjust the
quantity and quality of IDS to their infants listening preferences and developmental needs.
Based on this, it has been proposed that IDS provides infants with an optimal speech signal to
facilitate speech processing and encoding at the early stages of language development. In this
talk, I will present recent studies investigating this proposal by measuring neurophysiological
responses to IDS and ADS in monolingual and bilingual infants. Our findings indicate that IDS
plays an important role in facilitating neural encoding of speech, but infants neural responses
to IDS are modulated by their age, familiarity with the speech stimuli, and the complexity of
the speech processing task. Poster