Children’s Tuning in to Word Recognition (B05)

• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 551281144

This project explores how young children learn to recognize words. Speech contributes information on different layers (word content, speech acts, emotion) and children must learn which acoustic information is relevant for understanding words and which is noise in that regard. Focusing on 18-22 month old German toddlers, we investigate how pitch and voice quality (aspects that signal speech act or emotion) affect early word recognition. We use linguistic analyses and eyetracking experiments to determine how actual acoustic noise (breathy voice) and variability in the input shapes children's ability to distinguish lexical cues from noise.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1760: SiNoSi: Silence, Noise and Signal in Language
• Applicant Institution: Universität Konstanz
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Bettina Braun