Infants struggle to understand familiar words spoken in unfamiliar accents. Here, we examine whether accent exposure facilitates accent-specific adaptation. Two types of pre-exposure were examined: video-based (i.e., listening to pre-recorded stories; Experiment 1) and live interaction (reading books with an experimenter; Experiments 2 and 3). After video-based exposure, Canadian English-learning 15- to 18-month-olds failed to recognize familiar words spoken in an unfamiliar accent. However, after face-to-face interaction with a Mandarin-accented talker, infants showed enhanced recognition for words produced in Mandarin English compared to Australian English. Infants with live exposure to an Australian talker were not similarly facilitated, perhaps due to the lower vocabulary scores of the infants assigned to the Australian exposure condition. Thus, live exposure can facilitate accent adaptation, but this ability is fragile in young infants and is likely influenced by vocabulary size and the specific mapping between the speaker and the listener's phonological system.

中文翻译：

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现场接触带口音的说话者后的婴儿有针对性的适应

婴儿很难理解用不熟悉的口音说出的熟悉的单词。在这里，我们检查口音暴露是否有助于口音特异性适应。检查了两种类型的预暴露：基于视频的（即，听预先录制的故事；实验 1）和现场互动（与实验者一起阅读书籍；实验 2 和 3）。在基于视频的曝光后，加拿大学习英语的 15 至 18 个月大的孩子无法识别以不熟悉的口音说出的熟悉单词。然而，在与带有普通话口音的谈话者进行面对面交流后，与澳大利亚英语相比，婴儿对普通话英语产生的单词的识别能力更强。与澳大利亚谈话者现场接触的婴儿没有得到类似的便利，这可能是由于分配给澳大利亚接触条件的婴儿的词汇分数较低。