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How Infants Crack the Speech Code

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the some-of-us-never-quite-crack-it dept.

scupper writes "Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data shows that infants use computational strategies to detect patterns in language, according to UW's Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl in the Nature article "Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code" [PMID: 15496861] Interesting excerpt from the article: 'There is evidence that infants analyse the statistical distributions of sounds that they hear in ambient language, and use this information to form phonemic categories. They also learn phonotactic rules -- language-specific rules that govern the sequences of phonemes that can be used to compose words.'"

8 of 506 comments (clear)

  1. ObBeowulf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    "New data shows that infants use computational strategies to detect patterns in language"

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those...

  2. I for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    welcome our new infant language learning overlords.

    Wait, that would mean they're around age 8 to 24 months.

    Damn!

    Don't look, don't look...think of something else.

    Back to the mothership. Ohhmmmmmmmmmm.

  3. Re:Babies are amazing machines by antifoidulus · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Congrats on adding pointless political commentary to a totally unrelated topic...... Oy, must we politicize EVERYTHING!!!

    --
    Monstar L
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    https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b0ab39f1a8-62e3c6 9d32-22621daaff

    https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b0ab39f1a8-6c3f07 c84e-b9e70ce4cd

  5. Please leave the politics out of this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Could we please for once keep the political agendas out of the discussion! Every single thread on Slashdot for the last couple of weeks is full of it. We have enough flame wars as it is.

    Your vote is your opinion, so please keep it to yourself.

  6. The question remains by Aliencow · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Do they play ogg ?

  7. Infants crack more than speech by FerretFrottage · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ...they also crack their parents. Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? Try a colicky baby at 3 AM (or for this crowd since you are still awake at 3AM, while'll you're trying to play in a CS tournament and know someone is sneaking up on you).

    Want to hear to greatest sound in the world? "Dada"

    --
    "Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
  8. Re:In Soviet Russia.... by solferino · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    If that translates to "Infant speech cracks you" then congrats for keeping an old joke fresh.

    Made me laugh anyway.