A sensitive period for shibboleths: The long tail and changing goals of speech perception over the course of development

作者：Zevin Jason D^*

来源：Developmental Psychobiology, 2012, 54(6): 632-642.

DOI：10.1002/dev.20611

• language
• plasticity

It is clear that the ability to learn new speech contrasts changes over development, such that learning to categorize speech sounds as native speakers of a language do is more difficult in adulthood than it is earlier in development. There is also a wealth of data concerning changes in the perception of speech sounds during infancy, such that infants quite rapidly progress from language-general to more language-specific perceptual biases. It is often suggested that the perceptual narrowing observed during infancy plays a causal role in the loss of plasticity observed in adulthood, but the relationship between these two phenomena is complicated. Here I consider the relationship between changes in sensitivity to speech sound categorization over the first 2 years of life, when they appear to reorganize quite rapidly, to the long tail of development throughout childhood, in the context of understanding the sensitive period for speech perception.

• 出版日期2012-9