Lost and Found: Decline and Reemergence of Non-Native Vowel Discrimination in the First Year of Life

Abstract

The aim was to investigate whether perceptual attunement is attested in vowel perception of Dutch-learning infants (6-8-10 month-olds). We used the hybrid visual fixation paradigm (HVF, Houston et al., 2007), which comprises habituation to one sound and subsequent testing on items in which the habituated sound is alternated with a sound either from the same or from another phonemic category. Infants were tested on a native (/a:/-/e:/) and a non-native (/æ/-/ɛ/) contrast. Habituation involved tokens of multiple speakers. In Study 1, at group level the six-month-olds (n = 52), the 8-month-olds (n = 40) and the 10-month-olds (n = 34) discriminated the native contrast. The non-native contrast was, again at group level, discriminated by 6-month-olds (n = 61) and 10-month-olds (n = 41) but not by the 8-month-olds (n = 39). We conclude that discrimination of phonetic categories is not a linear process and is sensitive to tasks applied.