Distinctive Feature Use in Speech Perception of Children

Abstract

For adults, the time required to judge whether two phonemes are "same" or "different" has been shown to vary inversely with the number of features on which the phonemes contrast. The present study measured the choice reaction time (CRT) judgments involving all possible pairs of 12 selected English consonants by five-, six-, and seven-year-old children. The same inverse relationship between CRT and feature contrasts typical of adults was exhibited by the children as a group. However, feature profile differences were exhibited according to sex and age. In addition, a multidimensional analysis (INDSCAL) of the proximity judgments as reflected by the CRTs was performed to determine the specific dimensions used by the children. A six-dimensional solution revealed the following perceptual strategies as the bases of their judgments: sibilant frequency, continuancy, voicing, stop, place of articulation, and age of acquisition or markedness.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bangs, T.E. ( 1975). Vocabulary Comprehension Scale (Austin, Texas) .

Carroll, J. and Chang, J.J. ( 1970). Analysis of individual differences in a multidimensional scaling via an N-way generalization of 'Eckart-Young' decomposition. Psychometrika, 35, 283-319.

Chomsky, N. and Halle, M. ( 1968). The Sound Pattern of English (New York).

Cole, R.A. and Scott, B. ( 1972). Distinctive feature control of decision time: same-different judgments of simultaneously heard phonemes. Perception & Psychophysics, 12, 91-4.

Eimas, P.D. ( 1975). Distinctive feature codes in the short-term memory of children. J. of exp. Child Psychol., 19, 241-51.

Gesell, A. , Halverson, H.M. , Thompson, H. , Ilg, F.L. and Costner, C.S. ( 1940). The First Five Years of Life: A Guide to the Study of the Preschool Child (New York).

Graham, L. and House, A. ( 1971). Phonological oppositions in children: a perceptual study . J. acoust. Soc. Amer., 49, 559-66.

Kirk, R.E. ( 1968). Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences (Belmont, Cal.).

Mccarthy, D. ( 1954). Language disorders in children. In. L. Carmichael (ed.), Manual of Child Psychology , 2nd ed. (New York).

10.

Mccarthy, D. ( 1959). Research in Language Development: Retrospect and Prospect . Monogr. Soc. for Res. in Child Development , 24.

11.

Mcinish, J.R. and Tikofsky, R.S. ( 1969). Distinctive features and response latency: a pilot study . Perception & Psychophysics, 6, 267-8.

12.

Polen, S.B. ( 1973). An Exploratory Investigation of the Perception of Selected English and Non-English Sounds in Children. Unpub. Ph.D. diss ., Ohio University.

13.

Repp, B.H. ( 1975). Distinctive features, dichotic competition and the encoding of stop consonants. Perception & Psychophysics , 17, 231-42.

14.

Singh, S. ( 1975). Distinctive features: a measure of consonant perception . In S. Singh (ed.), Measurement Procedures in Speech, Hearing and Language (Baltimore).

15.

Singh, S. and Singh, K. ( 1976). Phonetics: Principles and Practices (Baltimore) .

16.

Singh, S. , Woods, D.R. and Tishman, A. ( 1972). An alternative MD-SCAL analysis of the Graham and House data. J. acoust. Soc. Amer., 51, 666-8.

17.

Tikofsky, R.S. and Mcinish, J.R. ( 1968). Consonant discrimination by seven year olds: a pilot study. Psychonomic Science, 10, 61-2.

18.

Weiner, F. and Singh, S. ( 1974). Perceptual features of nine English consonants determined by choice-reaction time. J. exper. Psychol., 102, 615-20.

19.

Wish, M. ( 1970). An INDSCAL analysis of the Miller and Nicely consonant confusion data. Paper presented before the Acoustical Society of America, Houston.

20.

Wish, M. , Deutsch, M. and Biener, L. ( 1972). Differences in perceived similarity of nations . In R.N. Shepard , A.K. Romney and S.B. Nerlove (eds.), Multidimensional Scaling: Theory and Applications in the Behavioral Sciences (New York).