Publications [#169344] of Reiko Mazuka

Journal Articles

1. Sato, Y., Sogave, Y., & Mazuka, R., Discrimination of phonemic vowel length by Japanese infants, Developmental Psychology, vol. 46 no. 1 (2010), pp. 106-199
   (last updated on 2012/11/27)

   Abstract:
   Japanese has a vowel duration contrast as one component of its language-specific phonemic repertory to distinguish word meanings. It is not clear, however, how a sensitivity to vowel duration can develop in a linguistic context. The present study evaluated infants’ abilities to discriminate Japanese long and short vowels embedded in two-syllable words (/mana/ vs. /ma:na/), using the visual habituation-dishabituation method. The results revealed that 4- (n = 32) and 7.5-month old Japanese infants (n = 33) failed to discriminate the contrast (p = .676, .275, respectively), whereas 9.5-month old group (n = 33) showed the discrimination ability (p = .014). By contrast, the 4-month old group (n = 24) showed sensitivity to a vowel quality change (/mana/ vs. /mina/) (p = .034). These results indicate that Japanese infants acquire sensitivity to long/short vowel contrasts between 7.5- and 9.5-months of age, and that the developmental course of the phonemic category by the durational changes is different from that by the quality change.