Question

Explain what is meant by the claim that children under the age of one are universal listeners. Briefly describe one of the experimental methods that has provided evidence in support of this claim. Be sure to specify the hypothesis, dependent and independent variables.

Answer 1

The fact that babies are universal listeners implies that in the first months of their lives, they can discriminate all the sounds produced by human beings. However, with time, they become more skilled at discriminating the sounds of their own language but lose the ability to identify subtle sound differences in their non-native language. Kuhl et. al carried out an experiment using the head turn technique. Here, babies are taught to turn their heads when they heard a sound contrast between. If they do not turn their heads, it means that they have failed to perceive a sound contrast. The independent variable in the experiment was language and the dependent variable was head turning.