Cross-language analysis of phonetic units in language addressed to infants.

@article{Kuhl1997CrosslanguageAO,
  title={Cross-language analysis of phonetic units in language addressed to infants.},
  author={Patricia K. Kuhl and Jean E. Andruski and Inna A. Chistovich and Ludmilla A. Chistovich and Elena V. Kozhevnikova and Victoria L. Ryskina and Elvira I. Stolyarova and Ulla Sundberg and F Lacerda},
  journal={Science},
  year={1997},
  volume={277 5326},
  pages={
          684-6
        }
}
In the early months of life, infants acquire information about the phonetic properties of their native language simply by listening to adults speak. The acoustic properties of phonetic units in language input to young infants in the United States, Russia, and Sweden were examined. In all three countries, mothers addressing their infants produced acoustically more extreme vowels than they did when addressing adults, resulting in a "stretching" of vowel space. The findings show that language… 
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