Modeling infant speech sound discrimination using simple associative networksSchafer, G. and Mareschal, D. (2001) Modeling infant speech sound discrimination using simple associative networks. Infancy, 2 (1). pp. 7-28. ISSN 1525-0008 Full text not archived in this repository. It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing. To link to this item DOI: 10.1207/S15327078IN0201_2 Abstract/SummaryInfants' responses in speech sound discrimination tasks can be nonmonotonic over time. Stager and Werker (1997) reported such data in a bimodal habituation task. In this task, 8-month-old infants were capable of discriminations that involved minimal contrast pairs, whereas 14-month-old infants were not. It was argued that the older infants' attenuated performance was linked to their processing of the stimuli for meaning. The authors suggested that these data are diagnostic of a qualitative shift in infant cognition. We describe an associative connectionist model showing a similar decrement in discrimination without any qualitative shift in processing. The model suggests that responses to phonemic contrasts may be a nonmonotonic function of experience with language. The implications of this idea are discussed. The model also provides a formal framework for studying habituation-dishabituation behaviors in infancy.
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