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Interpretation of contrastive pitch accent in six- to eleven-year-old English-speaking children (and adults)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2012

KIWAKO ITO ,
SARAH A. BIBYK ,
LAURA WAGNER  and
SHARI R. SPEER
KIWAKO ITO*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
SARAH A. BIBYK
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
LAURA WAGNER
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
SHARI R. SPEER
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
*
Address for correspondence: Kiwako Ito, Ohio State University – Linguistics, 1712 Neil Ave, 222 Oxley Hall, Columbus, Ohio 43210, United States. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Both off-line and on-line comprehension studies suggest not only toddlers and preschoolers, but also older school-age children have trouble interpreting contrast-marking pitch prominence. To test whether children achieve adult-like proficiency in processing contrast-marking prosody during school years, an eye-tracking experiment examined the effect of accent on referential resolution in six- to eleven-year-old children and adults. In all age groups, a prominent accent facilitated the detection of a target in contrastive discourse sequences (pink cat→green cat), whereas it led to a garden path in non-contrastive sequences (pink rabbit→green monkey: the initial fixations were on rabbits). While the data indicate that children as young as age six immediately interpret contrastive accent, even the oldest child group showed delayed fixations compared to adults. We argue that the children's slower recovery from the garden path reflects the gradual development in cognitive flexibility that matures independently of general oculomotor control.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 84 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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Footnotes

[*]

We thank the Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI) for permitting the recruitment of their visitors and the children and parents who came to the Ohio State University campus to participate in the experiment. We are grateful to Ping Bai for her assistance with data analysis.

References

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