van Ommen, S. 1 , Boll-Avetisyan, N. 2 , Larraza, S. 3 , Wellmann, C. 2 , Bijeljac-Babic, R. 1 , Höhle, B. 2 & Nazzi, T. 1
1 CNRS, Université Paris Descartes
2 Universität Potsdam
3 University of the Basque Country
Within the framework of prosodic bootstrapping (Wanner & Gleitman, 1982), and as an extension of previous work on infant prosodic boundary perception (e.g. Nazzi et al., 2000; Johnson & Seidl, 2008; Wellmann et al., 2012), this study investigates the development of language-specific cue-weighting in prosodic processing.
To establish whether sensitivity to a major prosodic boundary is language-specific, we tested detection of prosodic boundaries by French-learning 6- and 8-month-olds (Exp.1-2) and German-learning 8-month-olds (Exp.3-4) in French sentences. These sentences had a prosodic boundary after the second name ([Loulou et Manou][et Nina]) or not ([Loulou et Manou et Nina]). The boundaries were either naturally cued (Exp.1,3), or cued exclusively by pitch and final lengthening (Exp.2,4), as in Wellmann et al. (2012) on German-learning 8-month-olds listening to German sentences.
Mixed-model analyses show that, at both ages, French-learning infants perceived the boundary in Exp.1 (6-month-olds: novelty interacting with familiarization, p=.04; 8-month-olds: familiarity, p=.02) but not in Exp.2. In contrast, German-learning 8-month-olds listening to French stimuli perceived the boundary in both experiments (Exp.3: novelty, p=.01; Exp.4: familiarity, p=.04), just like German-learning 8-month-olds listening to German stimuli (Wellmann et al., 2012). The results bring evidence for language-specific development of cue-weighting in prosodic boundary processing.