Infants Differentially Extract Rules from Language

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2021 Oct 9

PMID 34625613

Citations 5

Authors

Iris Berent

Irene de la Cruz-Pavia

Diane Brentari

Judit Gervain

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Infants readily extract linguistic rules from speech. Here, we ask whether this advantage extends to linguistic stimuli that do not rely on the spoken modality. To address this question, we first examine whether infants can differentially learn rules from linguistic signs. We show that, despite having no previous experience with a sign language, six-month-old infants can extract the reduplicative rule (AA) from dynamic linguistic signs, and the neural response to reduplicative linguistic signs differs from reduplicative visual controls, matched for the dynamic spatiotemporal properties of signs. We next demonstrate that the brain response for reduplicative signs is similar to the response to reduplicative speech stimuli. Rule learning, then, apparently depends on the linguistic status of the stimulus, not its sensory modality. These results suggest that infants are language-ready. They possess a powerful rule system that is differentially engaged by all linguistic stimuli, speech or sign.

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