Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Lewkowicz, David J.

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that sensitivity to unimodal nonnative speech contrasts generally narrows during the first year. Although other work has demonstrated a processing advantage for multimodal stimuli, research on infants' responsiveness to nonnative contrasts so far has not examined whether concurrent auditory and visual speech information can modulate perceptual narrowing. Thus, the current study investigated the influence ofbimodally specified speech sounds on infants' sensitivity to a nonnative phonemic contrast. Six-month-old and 10- to 12-month-old infants were tested in a habituation/test procedure for discrimination of an audiovisual nonnative speech contrast (Hindi /tal dental vs. /Tal retroflex stop). Findings showed that infants at both ages exhibited evidence of discrimination following habituation to one of the speech sounds. These findings suggest that the usually observed decline in responsiveness to nonnative speech contrasts is limited to audibly specified contrasts and that concurrent visual speech information enhances the discriminability of such contrasts.

Extent

44 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2007.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Charles E. Schmidt College of Science|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00000835

Format

pdf

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