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Poster D in Poster Session D: Wednesday, August 5, 2:00 – 3:45 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Towards a minimal model of early phonetic learning

Thibault Schneeberger¹, Thomas Schatz¹; ¹Université d'Aix-Marseille

Presenter: Thibault Schneeberger

We study the relationship between learning mechanisms and predicted developmental trajectories in early phonetic learning. We show that, when set up appropriately, a simple minibatch K-means algorithm correctly predicts the emergence of a cross-linguistic difference between American English- and Japanese-learning infants in the perception of English R vs L, as in “rock” vs. “lock.” These results contribute to the ongoing exploration of the constraints that developmental trajectories of phonetic perception place on the associated learning mechanisms.

Topic Area: Auditory, Speech & Language Processing