Who ...me?

Author: Denise R. Mandel, Peter W. Jusczyk and David B. Pisoni

Abstract:
Among the earliest and most frequent words that infants hear are their names. Yet, little is known about when infants begin to recognize their own names. using a modified version of the head turn preference procedure, we tested whether 4.5 months olds prefer to listen to their own names over foils which were either matched or mismatched for stress pattern. Our findings provide the first evidence that even these young infants recognize their names. Infants demonstrated significant preferences for their own names both when compared to foils which shared the same stress patterns, as well as to those with opposite patterns. The results suggest that infants are beginning to map sounds to meanings at an early age, well before they comprehend or produce language.