Mummy, why does that lady talk funny? Word generalisation and adaptation to unfamiliar regional accents can reveal the path of early word learning.

The purpose of this project is to investigate infants' ability to learn and recognise words when they are spoken in a familiar accent (Australian English) and an unfamiliar one (Cockney English).

Benefits of the research include increasing our understanding of the development of speech and language.

Researchers are recruiting 10-12 month / 14-16 month / 18-20 month old monolingual infants to participate in this study. Please register or contact Valeria directly to take part.

Researchers

Professor Catherine Best(opens in a new window)

Valeria Peretokina(opens in a new window)

Partner / Funding Body

• Australian Research Council(opens in a new window)

Human Research Ethics Committee Approval Number: H10042

For more information or to register your interest, please contact:

Research

• Research Focus

• Research Projects

  • Contingency in infant-directed speech: Neurophysiological and psycho-social responses in pre-linguistic infants
  • Culture - Affect
  • Effect of Postnatal Depression on Parent-Child Communication
  • First Sounds and First Steps
  • Functioning Listening Index (FLI)
  • Many Babies
  • Mummy, why does that lady talk funny?
  • Optimising Infant Directed Speech
  • Seeds of language development
  • Speech adaptation: Neural mechanisms and stimulus information
  • Speech Registers
  • The role of properties of infant-directed speech on early word learning
  • Visual Speech Benefit in Auditory-Visual Speech Perception: Infants, Children, Hearing Impairment
  • Digital Infant Directed Speech (DIDS)
  • Infants' sensitivity to lexical tone and stress in early speech perception

• Publications

• The Benefits of Multilingualism

• OZI-SF Checklist Infant Vocabulary

• OZI-LF Checklist Infant Vocabulary