Geambasu, A. 1 , Spierings, M. 2 , Levelt, C. 1 & ten Cate, C. 2
1 Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
2 Institute Biology Leiden
Marcus et al. (1999) have shown that 7 month old infants can be trained on an ABA, ABB, or AAB grammar, generalize the grammar to novel input, and discriminate it from the non-training grammars. We performed a series of carefully constructed comparable experiments, to examine whether 6 and 9 month old infants, adults, and zebra finches are able to perform this task. We used both naturally-recorded female and male speech (syllables) and zebra finch song elements in all three populations. We compared the ability to generalize training grammar AAB or ABA, and to discriminate it from the non-training grammar. Preliminary data shows that human adults perform at ceiling in a Go/No-go paradigm with human speech elements. While zebra finches are able to discriminate the two grammars with both human and birdsong stimuli after training on the Go/No-go paradigm, the speech stimuli seems to be more difficult for them to learn. In addition, as a group they are not able to generalize the training grammar to novel input, although individual zebra finches seem to be showing evidence of generalize (cf. van Heijningen et al., 2012). Preliminary infant data from a Preferential Looking task suggests that this paradigm is appropriate for performing a grammar discrimination experiment, and that the older infants are better able to perform this task than the younger. We will present data on both species that points to a species specific, yet developmentally dependent, ability to generalize grammatical rules to novel input in the auditory domain.