Acoustic determinants of infant preference for motherese speech. Infant Behavior and Development

Three experiments investigated possible acoustic determinants of the infant lis-tening preference for motherese speech found by Fernald (1985). To test the hypothesis that the intonation of motherese speech was sufficient to elicit this preference, it was necessary to eliminate lexical content and to isolate the three maior acoustic correlates of intonation: (1) fundamental frequency (Fo), or pitch: (2) amplitude, correlated with loudness; and (3) duration, related to speech rhythm. Three sets of auditory reinforcers were computer-synthesized, derived from the FO (Experiment 1). amplitude (Experiment 2). and durotion (Experiment 3) characteristics of the infant- and adult-directed natural speech samples used by Fernald (1985). Thus, each of these experiments focused on particular prosodic variables in the absence of segmental variation. Twenty 4-month-old infants were tested in on operant ouditory preference procedure in each experiment. In-fonts showed a significant preference for the FO-patterns of motherese speech, but not for the amplitude or duration patterns of motherese. motherese intonation infant auditory preference fundamentol frequency language input auditory development The primary emphasis in research on the structure and functions of motherese has been on linguistic variables and language outcome measures. Much less at-tention has been given to the sound of mothers ’ speech, and to the possible role of the exaggerated intonation typical of motherese in communicating af-fect and regulating infant attention, particularly with prelinguistic infants. In an auditory preference study, Fernald (1985) found that 4-month-old infants chose to listen more often to infant-directed speech than to adult-directed speech, a listening preference which could be accounted for by a number of perceptual as well as linguistic variables. The present study extends these find-This report is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements fo