The perceptual attunement to native vowel categories has been reported to occur at 6 months of age. However, some languages contrast vowels both in quality and in length, and whether and how the acquisition of spectral and duration-cued contrasts differs is uncertain. This study traced the development of infants' sensitivity to native (Czech) vowel-length and vowel-quality contrasts. The results suggest that in a vowel-length language, infants learn to categorize vowels in terms of length earlier and/or more robustly than in terms of quality, the representation of which may still be relatively underdeveloped at 10 months of age.

Department of English and American Studies Palacký University Olomouc Křížkovského 10 Olomouc 77180 Czech Republic

Institute of Phonetics Charles University Nám Jana Palacha 2 Praha 116 38 Czech

Institute of Psychology Czech Academy of Sciences Hybernská 8 Praha 110 00 Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Neural processing of speech sounds at premature and term birth: ERPs and MMR between 32 and 42 weeks of gestation

Neural Processing of Spectral and Durational Changes in Speech and Non-speech Stimuli: An MMN Study With Czech Adults