2-168 - Tuning Into Language: Behavioral and Neural Differentiation of Speech and Non-Speech in Infancy

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Infants rapidly tune into the signals of human language. Neonates prefer vocalizations of humans and non-human primates to other sounds. Within months, listening preferences narrow to language and especially their native language (Vouloumanos et al., 2010; Kuhl, 2004). Moreover, language evokes more than listening preferences: by 3 months, language facilitates core cognitive processes including object categorization (Ferry et al., 2010). Initially, both human and non-human primate vocalizations promote cognition; after 4-months, infants tune specifically to human language.
This symposium employs state-of-the-art methodologies to illuminate three complementary facets of this remarkable tuning process. The first uses near-infrared spectroscopy to compare neonates’ and 4-month-olds’ neural activation to spoken language (familiar and unfamiliar) and whistled language. It documents a neural preparedness for spoken language at birth that becomes attuned to one’s native language by 4-months. The second uses functional MRI to identify neural structures dedicated to speech compared with non-speech in 1- to 4-month-olds. It shows an age-related decline in non-speech activation and, by 3 months, enhanced neural response to speech compared with rhesus macaque vocalizations. The third reveals clear boundary conditions on the signals infants link to cognition: at 4-months, native and non-native human language –but not bird vocalizations– facilitate object categorization.
The findings collectively elucidate the earliest moments of language acquisition, as neonates’ initially broad preparedness for language becomes rapidly attuned to signals that carry the greatest meaning in their environment. The symposium showcases how infants’ tuning to communicative signals interacts with functional brain development and facilitates learning about the world.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Sandra R Waxman, Northwestern University

Discussant

• Sandra R Waxman, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Tuned for Speech?: Neural Activation to Spoken and Whistled Language in Young Infants - Presenting Author: Lillian May, University of British Columbia; Judit Gervain, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Manuel Carreiras, 1Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Spain; Janet F Werker, Univ of British Columbia

• Infant Brain Responses to Speech and Other Naturally Occurring Sounds: An fMRI Study - Presenting Author: Sarah Shultz, Emory University School of Medicine; Athena Vouloumanos, New York University; Kevin Pelphrey, Yale University School of Medicine

• Surprisingly Early Links Between Language and Cognition in Preverbal Infants: Establishing the Boundary Conditions - Presenting Author: Danielle Perszyk, Northwestern Univ; Sandra R Waxman, Northwestern University