creators_name: Ramus, Franck
creators_name: Hauser, Marc D.
creators_name: Miller, Cory
creators_name: Morris, Dylan
creators_name: Mehler, Jacques
type: journalp
datestamp: 2000-12-19
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:27
metadata_visibility: show
title: Language discrimination by human newborns and by cotton-top tamarin monkeys
ispublished: pub
subjects: bio-ani-cog
subjects: ling-phono
full_text_status: public
keywords: language discrimination rhythm comparative speech perception tamarin newborn evolution
abstract: Humans, but no other animal, make meaningful use of spoken language. What is unclear, however, is whether this capacity depends on a unique constellation of perceptual and neurobiological mechanisms, or whether a subset of such mechanisms are shared with other organisms. To explore this problem, we conducted parallel experiments on human newborns and cotton-top tamarin monkeys to assess their ability to discriminate unfamiliar languages. Using a habituation-dishabituation procedure, we show that human newborns and tamarins can discriminate sentences from Dutch and Japanese, but not if the sentences are played backwards. Moreover, the cues for discrimination are not present in backward speech. This suggests that the human newborns' tuning to certain properties of speech relies on general processes of the primate auditory system.
date: 2000-04
date_type: published
publication: Science
volume: 288
number: 5464
publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
pagerange: 349-351
refereed: TRUE
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citation:   Ramus, Franck and Hauser, Marc D. and Miller, Cory and Morris, Dylan and Mehler, Jacques  (2000) Language discrimination by human newborns and by cotton-top tamarin monkeys.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/1158/3/tamarin99.pdf