Goldstein & Schwade (2008)

Goldstein & Schwade's (2008) study shows

how social feedback and timing affect infants’ vocal learning

4 conditions: Contingent-Resonant

Caregiver responded immediately after the baby’s vocalization (coo, ahh)

4 conditions: Contingent-CV

Caregiver responded immediately after the baby made a canonical babble (clear CV like “ba and ma”)

4 conditions: Yoked-Resonant

Caregiver response wasn’t time-locked to their baby’s sounds. Instead, the recorded response from a different mother-infant pair in the contingent condition was played, but applied to a different baby. And only after the baby’s vocalization (coo, ahh)

ex of how yoked condition works

 baby said “ba” -> (silence)...(later) -> mom responds much later

4 conditions: Yoked-CV

Caregiver response wasn’t time-locked to their baby’s sounds. Instead, the recorded response from a different mother-infant pair in the contingent condition was played, but applied to a different baby. And only after the baby made a canonical babble (clear CV like “ba and ma”)

in contingent condition, infants produced more

speech-like (canonical babbles) and showed greater vocal complexity after caregivers responded immediately to their sounds.

in control (yoked) condition, infants’ vocalizations

didn’t increase in complexity. Babbling stayed at the same or lower level.

The effects were

Specific to the one caregivers made

Infants improved in the

same type of vocalization that caregivers reinforced (resonance improved with resonant feedback and canonical syllables improved with CV-contingent feedback)

How do these results align with formal theories of language development: Behaviorism

more mature vocalization -> maternal attention (positive reinforcement)

How do these results align with formal theories of language development: Information processing

Same input (maternal responses), but the timing of the feedback differs

How do these results align with formal theories of language development: Constructivism

Contingent feedback -> accommodation (adjust their mental model that if they do better they will get that feedback)

How do these results align with formal theories of language development: Social Interaction

Scaffolding of input (timing of response) to facilitate learning