Divergent developmental patterns for infants' perception of two nonnative consonant contrasts

By Catherine T. Best, G. McRoberts, Rosemarie LaFleur, Jean L Silver-Isenstadt. 1995

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Citations in the corpus

Speech perception as a window for understanding plasticity and commitment in language systems of the brain. (2005, background): “Perhaps surprisingly, the easiest nonnative assimilations are for those contrasts, such as the Zulu clicks, which fall completely outside of the phonological system used in the native language (Best et al., 1995), but as discussed earlier, this is likely because the sounds are not assimilated to the”
The role of accentual pattern in early lexical representation (2004, background): “From 9 months on we find evidence for increasing familiarity responses to native vs. non-native segmental patterns (Jusczyk et al., 1993b; Jusczyk, Luce, & Charles-Luce, 1994), and by 10–12 months we see a loss of capacity for discriminating non-native consonantal contrasts, from which an attentiona”
The development of phonetic representation in bilingual and monolingual infants (2007, methodology): “Consonantal reorganization is typically observed in monolingual infants by 10–12 months of age (Anderson et al., 2003; Best et al., 1995; Kuhl et al., 2006; Werker & Lalonde, 1988; Werker & Tees, 1984), but because a delay has been suggested in vowel organization in bilinguals (Bosch & Sebastián-Gal”
Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to the listener's native phonological system. (2001, background): “In particular, 10–12 month olds discriminated a click contrast but failed to do so with a nonnative contrast from Werker et al. (1981) on which adults’ perception had been consistent with SC assimilation (Best et al., 1995).”
Infant sensitivity to distributional information can affect phonetic discrimination. (2002, background): “These results parallel the behavior of infants who have amassed months of exposure to the native language: many non-native contrasts that are discriminable during the first 6 months are no longer discriminated later in infancy (Best et al., 1995; Werker & Tees, 1984).”
Distributional Phonetic Learning at 10 Months of Age. (2010, background): “Further, the emergence of native phonetic categories by this age might result in greater perceptual rigidity given that nonnative distinctions would now be more diﬃcult to perceive (Best, 1995) and would require learning of a second phonetic structure (Flege, 1995).”