Author: Rosie Mejia

In this experiment, we’re attempting to learn how infants segment words and word parts from running, continuous speech, because most of the words they hear are not in isolation, but in larger sentences. Specifically, we are looking to see if a familiar word, such as “Mommy,” can help infants identify the verb that follows (e.g. If they hear ‘Mommy smiles’ and they know that ‘mommy’ is a word, then ‘smiles’ must be a different word). 

To test this we have infants sit on the parent’s lap in a booth with three lights, one in front and one on each side. We have them listen for a few minutes to a story featuring the word “mommy” (or “ mama”) followed by two target verbs. After the story, we play the two verbs in isolation or again in sentences as well as two brand new verbs to see which words or sentences infants listen to/pay attention to longer. If they were able to extract the verb in the first part they should pay more attention to the familiar words or sentences containing those familiar words.