infant_speech

Human Infant Vocalization

Brain imaging techniques are revolutionizing research in human psychology and neuroscience, but their application to the infant human brain will remain limited due to ethical and technical reasons. An alternative and complementary approach can be found in quantitative human ethology, with non-invasive high resolution recording and fine analysis of natural behavior.

The purpose of this project is to study the development of speech in human infants through quantification of vocalizations in ecological conditions. Previous studies of early language acquisition have largely consisted of linguists transcribing infant sounds by hand or of relatively short acoustic recordings (a couple of hours per week or month), although infant vocalizations can change significantly from day to day. Instead, we will use more continuous, dense recordings of vocalizations (audio and video), and we will also develop associated analysis and data management tools.

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