Biomaterial Database

Syllabic pitch perception in 2- to 3-month-old infants. 1989

R G Karzon, and J G Nicholas

The pitch patterns present in speech addressed to infants may play an important role in perceptual processing by infants. In this study, the high-amplitude sucking procedure was used to assess discrimination by 2- to 3-month-old infants of rising versus falling pitch patterns in 400-msec synthetic [ra] and [la] tokens. The syllables' intonation contour was modeled on infant-directed speech, and covered a range characteristic of an adult female speaker (180-300 Hz). Group data indicated that the 2- to 3-month-old infants discriminated the pitch contour for both stimuli. Results are discussed with reference to previous studies of syllabic pitch perception.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007223	Infant	A child between 1 and 23 months of age.	Infants
D010700	Phonetics	The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed)	Speech Sounds,Sound, Speech,Sounds, Speech,Speech Sound
D010897	Pitch Discrimination	The ability to differentiate sound frequency or pitch.	Discrimination, Pitch,Pitch Discriminations
D002666	Psychology, Child	Branch of psychology involving the study of normal and abnormal behavior of children.	Child Psychology,Infant Psychology,Pediatric Psychology,Psychology, Infant,Psychology, Pediatric
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D001143	Arousal	Cortical vigilance or readiness of tone, presumed to be in response to sensory stimulation via the reticular activating system.	Vigilance, Cortical,Arousals,Cortical Vigilance
D001288	Attention	Focusing on certain aspects of current experience to the exclusion of others. It is the act of heeding or taking notice or concentrating.	Focus of Attention,Selective Attention,Social Attention,Attention Focus,Attention, Selective,Attention, Social,Selective Attentions
D013067	Speech Perception	The process whereby an utterance is decoded into a representation in terms of linguistic units (sequences of phonetic segments which combine to form lexical and grammatical morphemes).	Speech Discrimination,Discrimination, Speech,Perception, Speech