Infants′ Sensitivity to Phonotactic Patterns in the Native Language

There is increasing evidence that during the latter half of their first year, infants begin learning about the organization of sound patterns in their native language. The present study investigated whether American infants are sensitive to the frequency with which certain phonetic patterns appear in English words. Two types of lists of monosyllables were presented using the headturn preference procedure. High-probability lists contained items with phonetic patterns that occur frequently in English words. Low-probability lists were composed of items with phonetic patterns that appear infrequently in English words. Nine-month-olds, but not 6-month-olds, listened significantly longer to the high-probability lists. A follow-up experiment indicated that the 9-month-olds′ preference for the high-probability lists occurs even when the lists are matched in terms of vowel quality. We discuss the implications of this preference for frequently appearing phonetic patterns for word recognition and the development of the mental lexicon.