Hearing speakers of two English accents at 14 months boosts recognition of new words by those speakers at 19 months

Best, C. 1 , Gates, S. 2 , Kitamura, C. 3 , Docherty, G. 4 & Evans, B. 5

1 Western Sydney University
2 Western Sydney University
3 Western Sydney University
4 Griffith University
5 University College London

Australian 14 and 19 month-olds recognize familiar words spoken in Australian English, but fail with the Jamaican English accent when vowels differ categorically from Australian. Yet both ages succeed in Jamaican when the vowels differ sub-categorically, and succeed with unfamiliar Cockney English when the consonants differ either sub-categorically or categorically (Best et al., ICIS 2014a-b, 2016a-b). A key remaining question is whether/how prior exposure affects accommodation to accents. Talker pre-exposure is known to benefit infants? recognition of the exposed words: it is better for familiarized than novel talkers. Here we asked: Might pre-exposure to talkers of an accent yield a talker-familiarity benefit for that accent? Will it extend to untrained words, indicating formation of phonological abstractions and generalization across the lexicon? Are these benefits retained over time? We compared two groups of 19 month-olds on word recognition involving categorical consonant differences between Australian (native) and Cockney accents. One group was naïve to the talkers; the other had participated in a parallel study at 14 months using different words with sub-categorical cross-accent consonant differences, but spoken by the same talkers. Prior exposure enhanced recognition of novel words even 5 months later, providing new insights into episodic memory in early word representations.