Four-month-old infants prefer to listen to motherese
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The universal speaking style used by caretakers around the world when addressing infants (motherese/parentese) is preferred over adult-directed speech by infants given a choice.
“The universal speaking style used by caretakers around the world when they address infants, often called “motherese” or “parentese” (102), has been shown to be preferred over adult-directed speech by infants given a choice (103, 104).”
From A new view of language acquisition (2000) · cites this paper as [103]
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“Such paternal vocal response, has been conventionally subdivided into infant-directed speech— also referred to as ‘motherese’ (Fernald, 1985), ‘babytalk’ (Singh et al.”
BackgroundKaplan, P. S., Danko, C. M., Kalinka, C. J., & Cejka, A. M. (2012) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.02.009 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- Fernald, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Oregon (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fernald, Anne
- ORCID
- Fernald, Anne
- Venue
- Infant Behavior and Development
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1985-04
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 181-195
- ISSN
- 0163-6383 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2079408923
- Cited by
- 1,015
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 67 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 69 · 2019: 63 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 58 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 49 · 2012: 32
- FWCI
- 8.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Infant Behavior and Development (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- child-directed speech, infant-directed speech, speech registers, adult-directed speech, infant language development
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