Collaborative Research Centre 1287
Limits of Variability in Language: Cognitive, Computational, and Grammatical Aspects
  1. CRC 1287
  2. Projects
  3. Project C03

Project C03

Effects of variable input on word learning and word recognition in infants

PI(s): Prof. Dr. Barbara Höhle & Prof. Dr. Adamantios Gafos

Spoken language does not provide a one-to-one relation between properties of the acoustic signal and abstract symbolic representations. This raises the question of how infants can detect the lexically relevant phonetic dimensions in their speech input. This project evaluates the hypothesis that acoustic variability is essential for the establishment of stability in phonemic categories during language development. We will pursue this hypothesis by considering the effects of different types of variability on word learning and speech perception, taking into account data-driven learning mechanisms that support the lexical development in the individual.

in Phase 1:

PI(s): Prof. Dr. Barbara Höhle & Prof. Dr. Adamantios Gafos

Spoken language does not provide a one-to-one relation between properties of the acoustic signal and abstract symbolic representations. This raises the question of how infants can detect the lexically relevant phonetic dimensions in their speech input. This project evaluates the hypothesis that acoustic variability is essential for the establishment of stability in phonemic categories during language development. We will pursue this hypothesis by considering the effects of different types of variability on word learning and speech perception, taking into account data-driven learning mechanisms that support the lexical development in the individual.

Members

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Prof. Dr. Barbara Höhle (+49) 331 977-2948 barbara.hoehle@uni-potsdam.de Homepage Universität ORCID
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Prof. Dr. Adamantios Gafos (+49) 331 977-2777 adamantios.gafos@uni-potsdam.de Homepage Universität ORCID
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Dr. phil. Alan Langus (+49) 331 977-2916 alan.langus@uni-potsdam.de ORCID
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Marc Hullebus marc.hullebus@uni-potsdam.de ORCID

Papers

Author(s)TitleYearPublished inLinks
Tobin, S., Hullebus, M., & Gafos, A. I.Immediate phonetic convergence in a cue-distractor paradigm.2018The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(6), EL528. DOI: 10.1121/1.5082984
Höhle, B., Bijeljac-Babic, R., & Nazzi, T.Variability and stability in early language acquisition: Comparing monolingual and bilingual infants' speech perception and word recognition.2019Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 56-71. DOI: 10.1017/S1366728919000348
Höhle, B., Fritzsche, T., Mess, K., Philipp, M., & Gafos, A.Only the right noise? Effects of phonetic and visual input variability on 14-month-olds' minimal pair word learning.2020Developmental Science, 23(5), e12950. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12950
Boll-Avetisyan, N., Bhatara, A., & Höhle, B.Processing of Rhythm in Speech and Music in Adult Dyslexia.2020Brain Sciences, 10(5), 261. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10050261
Höhle, B., Fritzsche, T., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Hullebus, M., & Gafos, A. I.Respect the surroundings: Effects of phonetic context variability on infants' learning of minimal pairs.2021JASA Express Letters, 1(2), 024401. DOI: 10.1121/10.0003574
Omane, P. O., & Höhle, B.Acquiring Syntactic Variability: The Production of Wh-Questions in Children and Adults Speaking Akan.2021Frontiers in Communication, 6. DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.604951
Marimon, M., Höhle, B., & Langus, A.Pupillary entrainment reveals individual differences in cue weighting in 9-month-old German-learning infants.2022Cognition, 224, 105054. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105054
Hullebus, M., Gafos, A., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Langus, A., Fritzsche, T., & Höhle, B.Infant preference for specific phonetic cue relations in the contrast between voiced and voiceless stops.2025Infancy, 30(1), e12630 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12630
Hullebus, M., Tobin, S., & Gafos, A.Speaker-specific structure in German voiceless stop voice onset times.2018Proceedings of Interspeech 2018 (pp.1403-1407). Hyderabad, India. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2288
Bhatara, A., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Höhle, B., & Nazzi, T.Early sensitivity and acquisition of prosodic patterns at the lexical level.2018N. Esteve-Gibert & P. Prieto (Eds.), The Development of Prosody in First Language Acquisition (pp. 37-57). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/tilar.23.03bha
Boll-Avetisyan, N.The role of phonological structure in speech segmentation by infants and adults: a review and methodological considerations.2018C. Ulbrich, A. Werth, & R. Wiese (Eds.), Empirical Approaces to the Phonological Structure of Words (pp. 213-240). Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110542899-009
Boll-Avetisyan, N., Nixon, J., Lentz, T., Liu, L., van Ommen, S., Coltekin, C., & van Rij, J.Neural response development during distributional learning.2018Proceedings of Interspeech 2018 (pp.1432-1436). Hyderabad, India. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2072
Junge, C., Boll-Avetisyan, N., & Benders, T.Speech Perception and discrimination: from sounds to words.2019J. Horst & J. von Koss Torkildsen (Eds.), International Handbook of Language Acquisition (pp. 153-172). New York: Routledge.
Nixon, J., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Lentz, T.O., van Ommen, S., Keij, B., Çöltekin, Ç., Liu, L., & van Rij, J.Short-term exposure enhances perception of both between- and within-category acoustic information.2018Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2018 (pp. 114-118). DOI: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-23

Talks

Author(s)TitleYearPublished inLinks
Boll-Avetisyan, N.Early infancy predictors of later language performance.2017Invited talk at the Exploratory Workshop on Early Language Assessment, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. 11 - 14 September.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., Fritzsche, T., & Jäkel, C.Recognition of vowel-initial words in continuous speech at 11 months: Evidence from German.2017Paper presented at the 2nd Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development (LCICD 2017), Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. 23 - 25 August.
Dimitriadis, A., Boll-Avetisyan, N., & Fritzsche, T.Measuring the learnability of morphological paradigms: An experimental study.2017Paper presented at the Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Theory (CIALT-1), University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece. 06 - 08 October.
Dimitriadis, A., Boll-Avetisyan, N., & Fritzsche, T.An experimental study of the learnability advantage of agglutinative over fusional morphology.2017Paper presented at the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Zurich, Switzerland. 10 - 13 September.
Höhle, B.Phonological information in language development and language processing: How to find phonological stability in a sea of sound.2017Invited talk at the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descatres, Paris, France. March.
Boll-Avetisyan, N.How short-term exposure alters the sensitivity to a non-native phonetic contrast: Novel insights from ERP and behavioral measures.2018Invited talk at the Linguistisches Kolloquium, Phillips-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany. 05 December.
Boll-Avetisyan, N.Determinants of variability and consistency in prosody perception.2018Invited talk at the Linguistisches Kolloquium, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany. 28 November.
Boll-Avetisyan, N.We got the beat: The role of innate biases and input factors in prosody acquisition.2018Invited talk at the 40. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft. Kurz AG 14: Variable perception and production correlates for word stress in first language acquisition and child second language learning, Stuttgart, Germany. 07 - 09 March.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., & Fritzsche, T.Segmentation of vowel-initial words from continuous speech in infancy.2018Poster presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS 2018 - Building Bridges), Philadelphia, PA, USA. 30 June - 03 July.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., van Ommen, S., Nazzi, T., & Höhle, B.Lexical stress discrimination by simultaneous and late bilinguals.2018Poster presented at the International Symposium on Bilingualism and Cognition 2018, Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani - KK Birla Campus Goa, Goa, India. 01 - 03 November.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., van Ommen, S., Nazzi, T., & Höhle, B.Categorical perception of lexical stress in French L2 learners of German: Effects of musical acuity.2018Poster presented at the 43rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA, USA. 02 - 04 November.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., van Ommen, S., Nazzi, T., & Höhle, B.Stress “deafness” can be overcome: Evidence from Second language learners.2018Paper presented at the 28th Conference of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA 2018), Münster, Germany. 05 - 08 September.
Boll-Avetisyan, N., van Ommen, S., Nazzi, T., & Höhle, B.Categorical perception of lexical stress by simultaneous and late bilinguals.2018Paper presented at the LabPhon16 - Variation, development and impairment: Between phonetics and phonology, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. 19 - 22 June.
Fritzsche, T., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.Is any type of input variability beneficial for mapping novel words to objects in 14-month-old infants?2018Paper presented at the 3rd Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development (LCICD 2018), Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. 05 - 07 September.
Fritzsche, T., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.The beneficial role of variability for acquiring novel words: A habituation study with 14-month-old German-learning children.2018Poster presented at the 16th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon16 - Variation, development and impairment: Between phonetics and phonology), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. 19 - 22 June.
Höhle, B., Fritzsche, T., & Gafos, A. I.Input variability in learning novel object-label pairs: How specific are beneficial effects?2018Poster presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies (XXI ICIS - Building Bridges), Philadelphia, USA. 30 June - 03 July.
Hullebus, M., Tobin, S. J., & Gafos, A. Speaker-specific structure in German voiceless stop voice onset times.2018Paper presented at the Interspeech 2018, Hyderabad, India. 02 - 06 September.
Brown, J. M. M., & Boll-Avetisyan, N.Artificial language learning experiments for testing the learnability of possible and impossible syntactic structures and previous exposure bias.2019Paper presented at the 3rd RTANJ-Workshop, Rtanj Mountain, Serbia. 04-07 July.
Fritzsche, T., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.How brief exposure to varying phonetic contexts can enhance minimal pair word learning in 14-month-old children.2020Poster presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies (XXII vICIS), Glasgow, UK. 06 - 09 July.
Fritzsche, T., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.Give me more! Increasing relevant acoustic variability aids 14-month-old children in learning minimal pairs.2020Poster presented at the 17th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon17), Online. Vancouver, Canada. 06 - 08 July.
Fritzsche, T., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Markmann, E., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.The facilitative effect of phonetic context variability on early word learning: A habituation study with 14-month-old children.2020Poster presented at the 10th Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD), Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. 09-11 January.
Höhle, B., & Gafos, A.Reflections of entropy and surprisal in infants looking times.2021Invited talk at the SFB Networking Workshop: Relation of Prominence, Surprisal and Information Structure, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany. 15-16 July.
Gafos, A. I.Entropic bases for artificial grammar learning and infant mispronounciation studies.2022Invited talk at the Linguistics Department Colloquium, Cornell University, USA, 28 April (Online)
Höhle, B.Not only noise: effects of acoustic variability on the development of phonological categories in early language acquisition.2022Invited talk at the Workshop: Hearing and Linguistics, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität, Oldenburg, Germany. 13 - 14 May.
Hullebus, M., Boll-Avetisyan, N., Fritzsche, T., Höhle, B., & Gafos, A.Listening preference for speech exhibiting natural phonetic cue relations.2022Paper presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies (XXIII ICIS - Developmental Cascades), Ottawa, Canada. 07 - 10 July.
Gafos, A.Entropic bases for artificial grammar learning and infant mispronunciation studies.2022Invited talk at the UFR Linguistics, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, Paris, France. 01 September.
Knabe, M., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.The effect of interleaving on minimal pair learning: A preferential looking paradigm with 14-month-old infants.2023Poster presented at the 13th Annual Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD), Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. 06 January.
Höhle, B.What the eyes can tell about language acquisition.2023Invited talk at the University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. 05 April.
Fritzsche, T., Knabe, M. L., Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.Can interleaving facilitate minimal pair word learning in infants? Testing a new word-learning procedure.2023Poster presented at the 8th Lancaster Conference on Infant and Child Development (LCICD 2023), Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. 23-25 August.
Knabe, M. L., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A. I., & Höhle, B.Does Variability in the Presentation Schedule Impact Minimal Pair Word Learning? Assessing the Interleaving Effect in 14- and 17-Month-Old Infants.2024Poster presented at the 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), University of Boston, Boston, MA., USA. 08. November.
Hullebus, M., Gafos, A., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., & Höhle, B.The use of coarticulatory cues for syllable-final minimal pair word-learning by 14-month-old infants.2024Poster presented at the Workshop on Infant Language Development (WILD 2024), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. 19-21 June.
Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Fritzsche, T., Höhle, B., & Gafos, A.Effects of uncertainty on word learning in 2-year-old infants and adults.2024Poster presented at the Workshop on Infant Language Development (WILD 2024), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. 19-21 June.
Gafos, A.Entropic bases for artificial grammar learning and infant mispronounciation studies.2024Keynote talk at the 21st Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP21), University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. 14-16 February.
Langus, A.Is rhythm relevant for natural speech perception?2024Invited talk at the Multilingualism, Acquisition, and Development Colloquium Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin. Germany. 19 December.
Langus, A.Pupillary synchrony to speech in adults and infants.2024Paper presented at the CBC Seminars, Center for Brain and Cognition, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. 13 September.
Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Fritzsche, T., Höhle, B., & Gafos, A.Effects of uncertainty on word learning in 2-year-old infants and adults.2024Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies (ICIS XXIV), Glasgow, Scotland. 08-11 July.
Langus, A., & Boll-Avetisyan, NMusical experience is linked with infants’ pupillary entrainment to speech.2024Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies (ICIS XXIV), Symposium: Comparing the Forms, Functions, and Benefits of Different Modes of Infant-Directed Communication, Glasgow, Scotland. 08-11 July.
Hullebus, M., Gafos, A., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., & Höhle, B.Word-final minimal pair learning by 14-month-old infants: Using of coarticulatory cues.2025Poster presented at the 15th Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD), Budapest, Hungary. 9-11 January.
Langus, A., Höhle, B., & Gafos, A.Uncertainty in word-learning.2025Poster presented at the 15th Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD 2025), Budapest, Hungary. 09-11 January.
Langus, A., Höhle, B., & Elsner, B.Pupillary entrainment to natural speech reveals the development of bottom-up and top-down processes in speech perception.2025Paper presented at the 15th Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD 2025) (BCCCD 2025), Budapest, Hungary. 09-11 January.
Knabe, M. L., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., Hullebus, M., Gafos, A., & Höhle, B.Does variability in the presentation schedule impact minimal pair word learning? Assessing the interleaving effect in 14- and 17-month-old infants.2025Paper presented at the 47th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany. 04-07 March.
Hullebus, M., Höhle, B., Fritzsche, T., Langus, A., & Gafos, A.Perceptual confusability of place in German postvocalic final stops: the role of formant transition similarity.2025Paper presented at the 47th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany. 04-07 March.

Contact

University of Potsdam
Department Linguistics
Prof. Dr. Doreen Georgi
Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25
House 14, Room 3.33
14476 Potsdam

(+49) 331 977-2968
doreen.georgi@uni-potsdam.de