Recognizing infant-directed speech across distant cultures: Evidence from Africa

Gregory A. Bryant; Pierre Liénard; H. Clark Barrett

doi:10.1556/jep.10.2012.2.1

Jump to Content

Journal of Evolutionary Psychology

Volume/Issue:: Volume 10: Issue 2

Recognizing infant-directed speech across distant cultures: Evidence from Africa

Authors:

Gregory A. Bryant

Gregory A. Bryant Department of Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Los Angeles, USA
Department of Communication Studies, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, 2303 Rolfe Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1563, USA

Search for other papers by Gregory A. Bryant in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Pierre Liénard

Pierre Liénard Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA

Search for other papers by Pierre Liénard in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

, and

H. Clark Barrett

H. Clark Barrett Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Los Angeles, USA

Search for other papers by H. Clark Barrett in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

View More View Less

Pages:: 47–59

Online Publication Date:: 01 Jun 2012

Publication Date:: 01 Jun 2012

Article Category:: Research Article

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1556/jep.10.2012.2.1

Keywords:: infant directed speech; Turkana; intentions; universals; communication

Restricted access

Abstract

When communicating with infants, caregivers often modulate their speech in an effort to make their communicative and informative intentions more clear. Infant-directed (ID) speech differs acoustically from adult-directed (AD) speech, and systematically varies according to different kinds of intentions. This way of speaking to infants is thought to be a species-specific adaptation, as research has documented highly similar patterns in ID speech across a variety of cultures. A recent study has also shown that people from an indigenous non-Western culture (Shuar of Amazonian Ecuador) can reliably discriminate ID speech from AD speech in a language they do not speak, and distinguish between four different intention categories (prohibition, attention, comfort, and approval). The current research attempted to replicate this finding in a traditional African population, the Turkana of northwestern Kenya. In three experiments, we found that Turkana adults were able to discriminate between ID and AD speech produced in English by American mothers, and they could also distinguish between several intention categories in both ID and AD speech. Signal detection analysis revealed that ID speech was marginally more discriminable than AD speech, but overall rate of intention recognition was similar across speech types. These results partially support the hypothesis that ID speech is universally recognizable due to the formfunction relationship between acoustic signals and their communicative purpose, but there were differences in performance between Turkana and Shuar that merit further investigation.

ProCite

RefWorks

Reference Manager

BibTeX

Zotero

EndNote

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share Link

Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://akjournals.com/abstract/journals/1126/10/2/article-p47.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

Journal of Evolutionary Psychology

Print ISSN:: 1789-2082

Online ISSN:: 2060-5587

Journal of Evolutionary Psychology
Language	English
Size
Year of Foundation	2007 (2003)
Publication Programme	changed title
Volumes per Year
Issues per Year
Founder	Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's Address	H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher	Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's Address	H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Responsible Publisher	Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN	1789-2082 (Print)
ISSN	2060-5587 (Online)