Browsing by Author "Oller, D. Kimbrough"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Acoustic Correlates and Adult Perceptions of Distress in Infant Speech-Like Vocalizations and Cries
    (Frontiers, 2019) Yoo, Hyunjoo; Buder, Eugene H.; Bowman, Dale D.; Bidelman, Gavin M.; Oller, D. Kimbrough; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Memphis; University of Tennessee Health Science Center
    Prior research has not evaluated acoustic features contributing to perception of human infant vocal distress or lack thereof on a continuum. The present research evaluates perception of infant vocalizations along a continuum ranging from the most prototypical intensely distressful cry sounds ("wails") to the most prototypical of infant sounds that typically express no distress (non-distress "vocants"). Wails are deemed little if at all related to speech while vocants are taken to be clear precursors to speech. We selected prototypical exemplars of utterances representing the whole continuum from 0 and 1 month-olds. In this initial study of the continuum, our goals are to determine (1) listener agreement on level of vocal distress across the continuum, (2) acoustic parameters predicting ratings of distress, (3) the extent to which individual listeners maintain or change their acoustic criteria for distress judgments across the study, (4) the extent to which different listeners use similar or different acoustic criteria to make judgments, and (5) the role of short-term experience among the listeners in judgments of infant vocalization distress. Results indicated that (1) both inter-rater and intra-rater listener agreement on degree of vocal distress was high, (2) the best predictors of vocal distress were number of vibratory regimes within utterances, utterance duration, spectral ratio (spectral concentration) in vibratory regimes within utterances, and mean pitch, (3) individual listeners significantly modified their acoustic criteria for distress judgments across the 10 trial blocks, (4) different listeners, while showing overall similarities in ratings of the 42 stimuli, also showed significant differences in acoustic criteria used in assigning the ratings of vocal distress, and (5) listeners who were both experienced and inexperienced in infant vocalizations coding showed high agreement in rating level of distress, but differed in the extent to which they relied on the different acoustic cues in making the ratings. The study provides clearer characterization of vocal distress expression in infants based on acoustic parameters and a new perspective on active adult perception of infant vocalizations. The results also highlight the importance of vibratory regime segmentation and analysis in acoustically based research on infant vocalizations and their perception.
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    Infant boys are more vocal than infant girls
    (Cell Press, 2020) Oller, D. Kimbrough; Griebel, Ulrike; Bowman, Dale D.; Bene, Edina; Long, Helen L.; Yoo, Hyunjoo; Ramsay, Gordon; University of Memphis; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA); Emory University
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    The Origin of Protoconversation: An Examination of Caregiver Responses to Cry and Speech-Like Vocalizations
    (Frontiers, 2018) Yoo, Hyunjoo; Bowman, Dale A.; Oller, D. Kimbrough; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Memphis
    Turn-taking is a universal and fundamental feature of human vocal communication. Through protoconversation, caregivers play a key role for infants in helping them learn the turn-taking system. Infants produce both speech-like vocalizations (i.e., protophones) and cries from birth. Prior research has shown that caregivers take turns with infant protophones. However, no prior research has investigated the timing of caregiver responses to cries. The present work is the first to systematically investigate different temporal patterns of caregiver responses to protophones and to cries. Results showed that, even in infants' first 3 months of life, caregivers were more likely to take turns with protophones and to overlap with cries. The study provides evidence that caregivers are intuitively aware that protophones and cries are functionally different: protophones are treated as precursors to speech, whereas cries are treated as expressions of distress.
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    Preterm and full term infant vocalization and the origin of language
    (Nature Portfolio, 2019) Oller, D. Kimbrough; Caskey, Melinda; Yoo, Hyunjoo; Bene, Edina R.; Jhang, Yuna; Lee, Chia-Cheng; Bowman, Dale D.; Long, Helen L.; Buder, Eugene H.; Vohr, Betty; University of Memphis; Kaiser Permanente; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Chung Shan Medical University; Portland State University; Women & Infants Hospital Rhode Island; Brown University
    How did vocal language originate? Before trying to determine how referential vocabulary or syntax may have arisen, it is critical to explain how ancient hominins began to produce vocalization flexibly, without binding to emotions or functions. A crucial factor in the vocal communicative split of hominins from the ape background may thus have been copious, functionally flexible vocalization, starting in infancy and continuing throughout life, long before there were more advanced linguistic features such as referential vocabulary. 2-3 month-old modern human infants produce "protophones", including at least three types of functionally flexible non-cry precursors to speech rarely reported in other ape infants. But how early in life do protophones actually appear? We report that the most common protophone types emerge abundantly as early as vocalization can be observed in infancy, in preterm infants still in neonatal intensive care. Contrary to the expectation that cries are the predominant vocalizations of infancy, our all-day recordings showed that protophones occurred far more frequently than cries in both preterm and full-term infants. Protophones were not limited to interactive circumstances, but also occurred at high rates when infants were alone, indicating an endogenous inclination to vocalize exploratorily, perhaps the most fundamental capacity underlying vocal language.
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    Sex differences in infant vocalization and the origin of language
    (Cell Press, 2023) Oller, D. Kimbrough; Gilkerson, Jill; Richards, Jeffrey A.; Hannon, Steve; Griebel, Ulrike; Bowman, Dale D.; Brown, Jane A.; Yoo, Hyunjoo; Warren, Steven F.; University of Memphis; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Kansas
    Seeking to discern the earliest sex differences in language-related activities, our focus is vocal activity in the first two years of life, following up on recent research that unexpectedly showed boys produced significantly more speech-like vocalizations (protophones) than girls during the first year of life.We now bring a much larger body of data to bear on the comparison of early sex differences in vocali-zation, data based on automated analysis of all-day recordings of infants in their homes. The new evidence, like that of the prior study, also suggests boys produce more protophones than girls in the first year and offers additional basis for informed speculation about biological reasons for these differences. More broadly, the work offers a basis for informed speculations about foundations of language that we propose to have evolved in our distant hominin ancestors, foun-dations also required in early vocal development of modern human infants.
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    Social and endogenous infant vocalizations
    (PLOS, 2020) Long, Helen L.; Bowman, Dale D.; Yoo, Hyunjoo; Burkhardt-Reed, Megan M.; Bene, Edina R.; Oller, D. Kimbrough; University of Memphis; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Research on infant vocal development has provided notable insights into vocal interaction with caregivers, elucidating growth in foundations for language through parental elicitation and reaction to vocalizations. A role for infant vocalizations produced endogenously, potentially providing raw material for interaction and a basis for growth in the vocal capacity itself, has received less attention. We report that in laboratory recordings of infants and their parents, the bulk of infant speech-like vocalizations, or "protophones", were directed toward no one and instead appeared to be generated endogenously, mostly in exploration of vocal abilities. The tendency to predominantly produce protophones without directing them to others occurred both during periods when parents were instructed to interact with their infantsandduring periods when parents were occupied with an interviewer, with the infants in the room. The results emphasize the infant as an agent in vocal learning, even when not interacting socially and suggest an enhanced perspective on foundations for vocal language.