Hierarchical Processing in Seven‐Month‐Old Infants

Hierarchical structures are crucial to many aspects of cognitive processing and especially for language. However, there still is little experimental support for the ability of infants to learn such structures. Here, we show that, with structures simple enough to be processed by various animals, seven‐month‐old infants seem to learn hierarchical relations. Infants were presented with an artificial language composed of “sentences” made of three‐syllable “words.” The syllables within words conformed to repetition patterns based on syllable tokens involving either adjacent repetitions (e.g., dubaba) or nonadjacent repetitions (e.g., du ba du ) . Importantly, the sequence of word structures in each sentence conformed to repetition patterns based on word types (e.g., aba‐ abb ‐ abb ). Infants learned this repetition pattern of repetition patterns and thus likely a hierarchical pattern based on repetitions, but only when the repeated word structure was based on adjacent repetitions. While our results leave open the question of which exact sentence‐level pattern infants learned, they suggest that infants embedded the word‐level patterns into a higher‐level pattern and thus seemed to acquire a hierarchically embedded pattern.     

Can a Click be a Word?: Infants' Learning of Non‐Native Words

Forms that are nonlinguistic markers in one language (i.e., “tsk‐tsk” in English) may be part of the phoneme inventory—and hence part of words—in another language. In the current paper, we demonstrate that infants' ability to learn words containing unfamiliar language sounds is influenced by the age and vocabulary size of the infant learner, as well as by cues to the speaker's referential intent. When referential cues were available, infants at 14 months learned words with non‐native speech sounds, but at 20 months only those infants with smaller vocabularies succeeded. When no referential cues were present, infants at both 14 and 20 months failed to learn the same words. The implications of the relation between linguistic sophistication and non‐native word learning are discussed.     

Infant‐Directed Prosody Helps Infants Map Sounds to Meanings

Adults typically use an exaggerated, distinctive speaking style when addressing infants. However, the effects of infant‐directed (ID) speech on infants' learning are not yet well understood. This research investigates how ID speech affects how infants perform a key function in language acquisition, associating the sounds of words with their meanings. Seventeen‐month‐old infants were presented with two label‐object pairs in a habituation‐based word learning task. In Experiment 1, the labels were produced in adult‐directed (AD) speech. In Experiment 2, the labels were produced in ID prosody; they had higher pitch, greater pitch variation, and longer durations than the AD labels. We found that infants failed to learn the labels in AD speech, but succeeded in learning the same labels when they were produced in ID speech. Experiment 3 investigated the role of variability in learning from ID speech. When the labels were presented in ID prosody with no variation across tokens, infants failed to learn them. Our findings indicate that ID prosody can affect how readily infants map sounds to meanings and that the variability in prosody that is characteristic of ID speech may play a key role in its effect on learning new words.     

Letting Oneself Go Isn't Enough: Cognitively Oriented Expressive Writing Reduces Preadolescent Peer Problems

Peer problems are a stressor for many early adolescents, and simple cost‐effective tools for managing peer stress are needed. Expressive writing (EW) may be one such tool. With a sample of middle school children aged 12–14 years (n = 119; 53% males), this research evaluates whether cognitively oriented expressive writing (CEW), which focuses more on psychological self‐distancing, improves personal well‐being better than traditional EW, which focuses more on emotional disclosure. CEW—compared with EW—slightly enhanced long‐term social adjustment for the entire sample, and increased positive affect for those early adolescents that reported more peer problems at baseline. These findings suggest that structured writing instructions with early adolescents may be key to improvements.     

What aspects of counting help infants attend to numerosity?

Recent work shows that 18-month old infants understand that counting is numerically relevant—infants who see objects counted are more likely to represent the approximate number of objects in the array than infants who see the objects labeled but not counted. Which aspects of counting signal infants to attend to numerosity in this way? Here we asked whether infants rely on familiarity with the count words in their native language, or on procedures instantiated by the counting routine, independent of specific tokens. In three experiments (N = 48), we found that 18-month old infants from English-speaking households successfully distinguished four hidden objects from two when the objects were counted correctly, regardless of their familiarity with the count words (i.e., when objects were counted in familiar English and in unfamiliar German). However, when the objects were counted using familiar English count words in ways that violated basic counting principles, infants no longer represented the arrays, failing to distinguish four hidden objects from two. Together with previous findings, these results suggest that children may link the procedure of counting with numerosity years before they learn the meanings of the count words.     

Beneficial effects of the mother's voice on infants’ novel word learning

The maternal voice appears to have a special role in infants’ language processing. The current eye‐tracking study investigated whether 24‐month‐olds (n = 149) learn novel words easier while listening to their mother's voice compared to hearing unfamiliar speakers. Our results show that maternal speech facilitates the formation of new word–object mappings across two different learning settings: a live setting in which infants are taught by their own mother or the experimenter, and a prerecorded setting in which infants hear the voice of either their own or another mother through loudspeakers. Furthermore, this study explored whether infants’ pointing gestures and novel word productions over the course of the word learning task serve as meaningful indexes of word learning behavior. Infants who repeated more target words also showed a larger learning effect in their looking behavior. Thus, maternal speech and infants’ willingness to repeat novel words are positively linked with novel word learning.     

Online measures of looking and learning in infancy

Infants in laboratory settings look longer at events that violate their expectations, learn better about objects that behave unexpectedly, and match utterances to the objects that likely elicited them. The paradigms revealing these behaviors have become cornerstones of research on preverbal cognition. However, little is known about whether these canonical behaviors are observed outside laboratory settings. Here, we describe a series of online protocols that replicate classic laboratory findings, detailing our methods throughout. In Experiment 1a, 15-month-old infants (N = 24) looked longer at an online support event culminating in an Unexpected outcome (i.e., appearing to defy gravity) than an Expected outcome. Infants did not, however, show the same success with an online solidity event. In Experiment 1b, 15-month-old infants (N = 24) showed surprise-induced learning following online events—they were better able to learn a novel object's label when the object had behaved unexpectedly compared to when it behaved expectedly. Finally, in Experiment 2, 16-month-old infants (N = 20) who heard a valenced utterance (“Yum!”) showed preferential looking to the object most likely to have generated that utterance. Together, these results suggest that, with some adjustments, online testing is a feasible and promising approach for infant cognition research.     

The Pointing–Vocal Coupling Progression in the First Half of the Second Year of Life

This study investigated the development of the pointing–vocal coupling system. We were interested in the infants’ behavior to attune prosody with pointing intentions. Twenty‐five children were involved at 12, 15, and 18 months of age in an experimental procedure devised to elicit imperative and declarative pointing. Pointing, vocality associated with pointing, and the prosody of that vocality were analyzed. A significant increase in the coupling of pointing and vocality was observed from 12 to 15 months, and in the ability to differentiate prosody with respect to the intention of the gesture from 15 to 18 months. Also, the infants who pointed declaratively at 12 months were likely to couple declarative pointing with vocality at 15 months, and the infants who coupled at 15 months were likely to differentiate prosody by the pointing intention at 18 months. Results suggest that the match between prosody and pointing intentions emerges gradually during the first half of the second year of life. They also show a relationship between earlier and later pointing–vocal coupling, and a role for declarative communication in promoting that progression. Overall, our study supports the view of intentional communication as a time‐based and context‐based developmental process.     

Twelve‐Month‐Olds Know Their Cups From Their Keps and Tups

Fourteen‐month‐olds are sensitive to mispronunciations of the vowels and consonants in familiar words (N. Mani & K. Plunkett (2007), Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 252; D. Swingley & R. N. Aslin (2002), Psychological Science, 13, 480). To examine the development of this sensitivity further, the current study tests 12‐month‐olds’ sensitivity to different kinds of vowel and consonant mispronunciations of familiar words. The results reveal that vocalic changes influence word recognition, irrespective of the kinds of vocalic changes made. While consonant changes influenced word recognition in a similar manner, this was restricted to place and manner of articulation changes. Infants did not display sensitivity to voicing changes. Infants’ sensitivity to vowel mispronunciations, but not consonant mispronunciations, was influenced by their vocabulary size—infants with larger vocabularies were more sensitive to vowel mispronunciations than infants with smaller vocabularies. The results are discussed in terms of different models attempting to chart the development of acoustically or phonologically specified representations of words during infancy.     

Peers Increase Late Adolescents' Exploratory Behavior and Sensitivity to Positive and Negative Feedback

Adolescents take more risks with peers than when alone. It is not clear how peer presence affects adolescents' risky decision making, however. We used the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)—a game used to assess decision making involving risk and reward—to examine how peers affect late adolescents' exploration of relevant environmental cues, ability to learn from the outcomes (positive and negative) of that exploration, and ability to integrate feedback to adjust behavior toward optimal long‐term outcomes. One hundred and one 18‐ to 22‐year old males (M = 19.8 years) were randomly assigned to play the IGT either alone or observed by peers. Late adolescents tested with observers engaged in more exploratory behavior, learned faster from both positive and negative outcomes, and evinced better task performance than those tested alone.     

Self‐Destructive Symptomatic Frames in Clinical Adolescents: Is the Same Different?

This study examines individual and family predictors of different self‐destructive patterns—only suicidal ideation, only nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI), or suicide attempts (that may also include both suicide ideation (SI) and NSSI)—in a sample of outpatient adolescents (N = 42; 86% females) with mean age of 16 years (SD = 1.86). Results indicated that there are differences in youngsters with self‐destructive behaviors in their perception of paternal rejection and maternal control, when compared with youngsters reporting only SI. Adolescents from the groups with self‐destructive behaviors differ only in age. Together, these data highlight the relevance of adopting an ecosystemic perspective, which includes both the patients and their families, regarding treatment and prevention of self‐destructive symptomatic frames.     

Age‐Related Changes in Prosodic Features of Maternal Speech to Prelingually Deaf Infants with Cochlear Implants

This study investigated prosodic and structural characteristics of infant‐directed speech to hearing‐impaired infants as they gain hearing experience with a cochlear implant over a 12‐month period of time. Mothers were recorded during a play interaction with their HI infants (N = 27, mean age 18.4 months) at 3, 6, and 12 months postimplantation. Two separate control groups of mothers with age‐matched normal‐hearing infants (NH‐AM) (N = 21, mean age 18.1 months) and hearing experience‐matched normal‐hearing infants (NH‐EM) (N = 24, mean age 3.1 months) were recorded at three testing sessions. Mothers produced less exaggerated pitch characteristics, a larger number of syllables per utterance, and faster speaking rate when interacting with NH‐AM as compared to HI infants. Mothers also produced more syllables and demonstrated a trend suggesting faster speaking rate in speech to NH‐EM relative to HI infants. Age‐related modifications included decreased pitch standard deviation and increased number of syllables in speech to NH‐AM infants and increased number of syllables in speech to HI and NH‐EM infants across the 12‐month period. These results suggest that mothers are sensitive to the hearing status of their infants and modify characteristics of infant‐directed speech over time.     

Bias for Vocalic Over Consonantal Information in 6‐Month‐Olds

Human languages rely on the ability to learn and produce an indefinite number of words by combining consonants and vowels in a lawful manner. The categorization of speech representations into consonants and vowels is evidenced by the tendency of adult speakers, attested in many languages, to use consonants and vowels for different tasks. Consonants are favored in lexical tasks, while vowels are favored to learn structural regularities. Recent results suggest that this specialization is already observable at 12 months of age in Italian participants. Here, we investigated the representations of younger infants. In a series of anticipatory looking experiments, we showed that Italian 6‐month‐olds rely more on vowels than on consonants when learning the predictions made by individual words (Experiment 1) and are better at generalizing a structure when it is implemented over vowels than when it is implemented over consonants (Experiments 2 and 3). Until 6 months of age, infants thus show a general vocalic bias, which contrasts with the specialization previously observed at 12 months. These results suggest the format of speech representations changes during the second semester of life.     

Monolingual and bilingual infants’ word segmentation abilities in an inter‐mixed dual‐language task

Previous studies show that young monolingual infants use language‐specific cues to segment words in their native language. Here, we asked whether 8 and 10‐month‐old infants (N = 84) have the capacity to segment words in an inter‐mixed bilingual context. Infants heard an English‐French mixed passage that contained one target word in each language, and were then tested on their recognition of the two target words. The English‐monolingual and French‐monolingual infants showed evidence of segmentation in their native language, but not in the other unfamiliar language. As a group, the English‐French bilingual infants segmented in both of their native languages. However, exploratory analyses suggest that exposure to language mixing may play a role in bilingual infants’ segmentation skills. Taken together, these results indicate a close relation between language experience and word segmentation skills.     

Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents' Bullying‐Related Indirect Defending,Outsider Behavior,and Peer‐Group Status

During adolescence, youth become more likely to avoid involvement in witnessed bullying and less likely to support victims. It is unknown whether—and how—these bystander behaviors (i.e., outsider behavior and indirect defending) are associated with adolescents' peer‐group status (i.e., popularity and social acceptance) over time. Cross‐lagged path modeling was used to examine these longitudinal associations in a sample of 313 Dutch adolescents (M_age‐T1 = 10.3 years). The results showed that status longitudinally predicted behavior, rather than that behavior predicted status. Specifically, unpopularity predicted outsider behavior and social acceptance predicted indirect defending. These findings suggest that a positive peer‐group status can trigger adolescents' provictim stance. However, adolescents may also strategically avoid involvement in witnessed bullying to keep a low social profile.     

High Hopes but Even Higher Expectations: The Retreat From Marriage Among Low‐Income Couples

This study examines why low‐income, unmarried parents who say that they plan to marry at the time their child is born do not follow through on their plans. We use data from a nationally representative birth cohort survey—the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N =3,710)—combined with data from an embedded qualitative study—Time, Love, Cash, Caring, and Children (n =47)—to explore the reasons behind this apparent discrepancy. We find that some of the difference between parents’ expectations and behavior may be because of the overstatement of intentions at the time of the birth. Most of the discrepancy, however, results from parents’ perceived social and economic barriers to marriage. Specifically, unmarried parents have a long list of financial and relationship prerequisites they believe must be met in order for them to wed. Combined with other factors, these standards lead to an indeterminate delay in marriage.     

A Systematic Review of Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Research Samples in Couple and Family Therapy Journals

The purpose of this study is to review samples from research on gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) issues and to evaluate the suitability of this body of research to support affirmative and evidence‐based practice with GLB clients. The authors systematically reviewed the sampling methodology and sample composition of GLB‐related research. All original, quantitative articles focusing on GLB issues published in couple and family therapy (CFT)‐related journals since 1975 were coded (n = 153). Results suggest that within the GLB literature base there is some evidence of heterocentrism as well as neglect of issues of class, race, and gender. Suggestions to improve the diversity and representativeness of samples—and, thus, clinical implications—of GLB‐related research in CFT literature are provided.     

The Development of Referential Communication and Autism Symptomatology in High‐Risk Infants

Non‐verbal referential communication is impaired in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the development of difficulties with referential communication in the younger siblings of children with ASD (High‐Risk Siblings)—and the degree to which early referential communication predicts later autism symptomatology—is not clear. We modeled the early developmental trajectories of three types of referential communication: responding to joint attention (RJA), initiating joint attention (IJA), and initiating behavioral requests (IBR) across 8, 10, 12, 15, and 18 months of age in High‐Risk Siblings (n = 40) and the infant siblings of children without ASD (Low‐Risk Siblings; n = 21). Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that High‐Risk Siblings exhibited lower levels of baseline RJA and IJA and a lower rate of linear change in IBR than Low‐Risk Siblings. When the 10 High‐Risk Siblings who received an ASD diagnosis were excluded from analyses, group differences in the development of referential communication remained significant only for RJA. Baseline levels of IJA were associated with later ASD symptomatology among High‐Risk Siblings, suggesting that individual differences in referential communication development at 8 months may index early manifestations of ASD.     

Resolving the (Apparent) Talker Recognition Paradox in Developmental Speech Perception

The infant literature suggests that humans enter the world with impressive built‐in talker processing abilities. For example, newborns prefer the sound of their mother's voice over the sound of another woman's voice, and well before their first birthday, infants tune in to language‐specific speech cues for distinguishing between unfamiliar talkers. The early childhood literature, however, suggests that preschoolers are unable to learn to identify the voices of two unfamiliar talkers unless these voices are highly distinct from one another, and that adult‐level talker recognition does not emerge until children near adolescence. How can we reconcile these apparently paradoxical messages conveyed by the infant and early childhood literatures? Here, we address this question by testing 16.5‐month‐old infants (N = 80) in three talker recognition experiments. Our results demonstrate that infants at this age have difficulty recognizing unfamiliar talkers, suggesting that talker recognition (associating voices with people) is mastered later in life than talker discrimination (telling voices apart). We conclude that methodological differences across the infant and early childhood literatures—rather than a true developmental discontinuity—account for the performance differences in talker processing between these two age groups. Related findings in other areas of developmental psychology are discussed.     

Adolescents Conceived through Donor Insemination in Mother‐Headed Families: A Qualitative Study of Motivations and Experiences of Contacting and Meeting Same‐donor Offspring

This study interviewed adolescents conceived using sperm donation to examine their experiences of contacting and meeting ‘same‐donor offspring’ (i.e. donor‐conceived offspring raised in different families who share the same donor), their motivations for this contact, and how they make meaning of these relationships. This in‐depth qualitative study involved semi‐structured interviews with 23 young people aged 12–19 years (mean = 14 years). Interviewees were motivated by curiosity about their biological relations and by wanting to extend their family. Contact with same‐donor offspring was described as being either normal/neutral or as a unique experience that was integrated into their identity. This study highlights the importance of contact between same donor offspring, particularly during adolescence, a developmental stage associated with identity formation. The findings have important policy implications as they suggest that donor‐conceived individuals may benefit from contact with others conceived using the same donor prior to the age of 18 years.