In addition, several studies have found that infants fail to discriminate between small numbers when continuous variables such as surface area and

contour length are controlled. These findings suggest that under some circumstances, infants fail to recruit either the ANS or object file representations for small sets. Here, we used a numerical change detection paradigm to assess 6-month-old infants’ ability to represent small values. In Experiment 1, infants were tested with 1 versus 3, 1 versus 2, and 2 versus 3 dots. Infants successfully discriminated 1 versus 3 and 1 versus 2, but failed with 2 versus 3. In Experiment 2, we tested whether infants could compare small and large values with a 2 versus find more 4 condition. Across both experiments, infants’ performance exhibited ratio dependence, the hallmark of the ANS. Our results indicate that infants can attend to the purely numerical attributes of small sets and that the numerical change

detection paradigm accesses ANS representations in infancy regardless of set size. “
“Forms that are nonlinguistic markers in one language (i.e., “tsk-tsk” in English) may be part of the phoneme inventory—and hence part of words—in another language. In the current paper, we demonstrate that infants’ ability to learn words containing unfamiliar language sounds is influenced by the age and vocabulary size of the infant learner, as well as by cues to the speaker’s referential intent. When referential cues were available, infants at 14 months learned words with non-native speech

4��8C sounds, but at 20 months only those infants selleck with smaller vocabularies succeeded. When no referential cues were present, infants at both 14 and 20 months failed to learn the same words. The implications of the relation between linguistic sophistication and non-native word learning are discussed. “
“Newborn infants preferentially orient to familiar over unfamiliar speech sounds. They are also better at remembering unfamiliar speech sounds for short periods of time if learning and retention occur after a feed than before. It is unknown whether short-term memory for speech is enhanced when the sound is familiar (versus unfamiliar) and, if so, whether the effect is further enhanced by feeding. We used a two-factorial design and randomized infants to one of four groups: prefeed-unfamiliar, prefeed-familiar, postfeed-unfamiliar, and postfeed-familiar. Memory for either familiar or unfamiliar speech (the infant’s mother saying “baby” versus a female stranger saying “beagle”) was assessed using head turning to sound in an habituation–recovery paradigm and a retention delay of 85 sec either before or after a typical milk feed. Memory for the familiar speech–voice was enhanced relative to the unfamiliar speech–voice, expressed by significantly less head turning toward the habituated sound stimulus when it was re-presented after the delay.