Preferences of infants for regular and distorted natural speech stimuli

The schema hypothesis proposed by Kagan (Science, 1970, 170, 826-832) andLewis (Developmental Psychology, 1969, 1, 75-86) was used to make predictions concerning the preferences of infants 3 to 14 months old for speech stimuli. An operant response method was used in determining the infants' preferences for inflected, monotone, and scrambled natural speech stimuli. Although the infants' preferences did not change with age as predicted, the infants produced clear preference orderings for the three stimuli. The speech preferences were interpreted as being based on stimulus variables (e.g., word order, inflection, and speech rate) in addition to the realism variables assumed by the schema hypothesis.