[Corpora-List] Average Daily Word Exposure -- one more example

[John F. Sowa]

I just wanted to add one more example -- from the first hit
on Google Scholar:

Foreign-language experience in infancy: Effects of short-term exposure 
and social interaction on phonetic learning

    Patricia K. Kuhl, Feng-Ming Tsao, and Huei-Mei Liu

Abstract

Infants acquire language with remarkable speed, although little is known 
about the mechanisms that underlie the acquisition process. Studies of 
the phonetic units of language have shown that early in life, infants 
are capable of discerning differences among the phonetic units of all 
languages, including native- and foreign-language sounds. Between 6 and 
12 mo of age, the ability to discriminate foreign-language phonetic 
units sharply declines. In two studies, we investigate the necessary and 
sufficient conditions for reversing this decline in foreign-language 
phonetic perception. In Experiment 1, 9-mo-old American infants were 
exposed to native Mandarin Chinese speakers in 12 laboratory sessions. A 
control group also participated in 12 language sessions but heard only 
English. Subsequent tests of Mandarin speech perception demonstrated 
that exposure to Mandarin reversed the decline seen in the English 
control group. In Experiment 2, infants were exposed to the same 
foreign-language speakers and materials via audiovisual or audio-only 
recordings. The results demonstrated that exposure to recorded Mandarin, 
without interpersonal interaction, had no effect. Between 9 and 10 mo of 
age, infants show phonetic learning from live, but not prerecorded, 
exposure to a foreign language, suggesting a learning process that does 
not require long-term listening and is enhanced by social interaction.

http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9096.abstract



_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora