Previous studies have shown that visual information is a crucial input in early language learning. In the present study we examine what type of visual input helps preschoolers in acquiring nonnative phonological contrasts. Catalan/Spanish-speaking children (4–5 years, N = 47) participated in a task to assess their phonological discrimination abilities before and after a training. Three training conditions were presented: one with clear oral/visual speech information, one with an ostensive object-sound mapping, and one with a rich social interaction. Children’s looking patterns were tracked to examine their focus of interest while being trained. Results revealed that preschoolers’ discrimination abilities increase in all trained conditions, but the condition where the speaker created an ostensive object–sound mapping led to higher long-term gains (especially for younger children). Eye-tracking results further showed that children looked to the object of reference while being exposed to the novel phonological input, which may explain the higher learning gains in this condition. Our results indicate that preschoolers’ learning of nonnative phonological contrasts is particularly boosted when the speech input is accompanied by an object of reference that is signaled ostensively and contingently in the visual space, compared to when the visual space only contains clear oral/visual speech information or social interactivity cues.

中文翻译：

---

学龄前儿童受益于清晰的声音参照映射来获得非母语音系

先前的研究表明，视觉信息是早期语言学习的关键输入。在本研究中，我们检查哪种类型的视觉输入有助于学龄前儿童获得非母语语音对比。加泰罗尼亚语/西班牙语儿童（4-5 岁，ñ= 47) 参加了一项任务，以评估他们在训练前后的语音辨别能力。提出了三种训练条件：一种具有清晰的口头/视觉语音信息，一种具有明显的对象-声音映射，一种具有丰富的社交互动。跟踪儿童的观看模式以检查他们在训练时的兴趣焦点。结果表明，学龄前儿童的辨别能力在所有受过训练的条件下都有所提高，但说话者创建表面上的对象 - 声音映射的条件导致更高的长期收益（尤其是对于年幼的孩子）。眼动追踪结果进一步表明，儿童在接触新的语音输入时会注视参考对象，这可能解释了在这种情况下更高的学习收益。