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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/220689
Early audiovisual language discrimination: Monolingual and bilingual infants’ differences in language switch detection
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Successful language learning in bilinguals requires differentiation of two language systems. Capacity to discriminate rhythmically close languages has been reported in 4-month-olds using auditory-only stimuli. This research offers a novel perspective on early language discrimination using audiovisual material. Monolingual and bilingual infants were first habituated to a face talking in the participants' native language (or the more frequent language in bilingual contexts) and then tested on two successive language switches by the same speaker, with a close and a distant language. Code-switching exposure was indexed from parental questionnaires. Results revealed that while monolinguals could detect both the close- and distant-language switch, bilinguals only reacted to the distant language, regardless of home code-switching experience. In the temporal dimension, the analyses showed that language-switch detection required at least 10 seconds, suggesting that the audiovisual presentation (here the same speaker switching languages) slowed down or even hindered the language-switch detection. These results suggest that detection of a multimodal close-language switch is a challenging task, especially for bilingual infants exposed to phonologically and rhythmically close-languages. The current research sets the ground for further studies exploring the role of indexical cues and selective attention processes on language-switch detection.
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BIRULÉS MUNTANÉ, Joan, PONS GIMENO, Ferran and BOSCH GALCERAN, Laura. Early audiovisual language discrimination: Monolingual and bilingual infants’ differences in language switch detection. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2024. Vol. 48, num. 5, pags. 467-473. ISSN 0165-0254. [consulted: 9 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/220689