Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Conceptual precursors to language

Nature volume 430, pages 453–456 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Because human languages vary in sound and meaning, children must learn which distinctions their language uses. For speech perception, this learning is selective: initially infants are sensitive to most acoustic distinctions used in any language1,2,3, and this sensitivity reflects basic properties of the auditory system rather than mechanisms specific to language4,5,6,7; however, infants' sensitivity to non-native sound distinctions declines over the course of the first year8. Here we ask whether a similar process governs learning of word meanings. We investigated the sensitivity of 5-month-old infants in an English-speaking environment to a conceptual distinction that is marked in Korean but not English; that is, the distinction between ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ fit of one object to another9,10. Like adult Korean speakers but unlike adult English speakers, these infants detected this distinction and divided a continuum of motion-into-contact actions into tight- and loose-fit categories. Infants' sensitivity to this distinction is linked to representations of object mechanics11 that are shared by non-human animals12,13,14. Language learning therefore seems to develop by linking linguistic forms to universal, pre-existing representations of sound and meaning.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Infants show categorical perception of tight- and loose-fitting actions.
Figure 2: Infants use the tight–loose distinction in predicting object motion.
Figure 3: English-speaking adults' sensitivity to the tight-fit–loose-fit and support–containment distinctions.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Jusczyk, P. W. The Discovery of Spoken Language (MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Kuhl, P. K. Early linguistic experience and phonetic perception: Implications for theories of developmental speech perception. J. Phonetics 21, 125–139 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Eimas, P. D., Siqueland, E. R., Jusczyk, P. & Vigorito, J. Speech perception in infants. Science 171, 303–306 (1971)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hauser, M. D. The Evolution of Communication (MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1996)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Wyttenbach, R. A., May, M. L. & Hoy, R. R. Categorical perception of sound frequency by crickets. Science 273, 1542–1544 (1996)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Kuhl, P. K. & Miller, J. D. Speech perception by the chinchilla: Voiced-voiceless distinction in alveolar plosive consonants. Science 190, 69–72 (1975)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Kuhl, P. K. in Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition (ed. Harnad, S.) 355–386 (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1987)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Werker, J. F. & Tees, R. C. Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization during the first year of life. Infant Behav. Dev. 7, 49–63 (1984)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Choi, S. & Bowerman, M. Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. Cognition 41, 83–121 (1991)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. McDonough, L., Choi, S. & Mandler, J. M. Understanding spatial relations: Flexible infants lexical adults. Cogn. Psychol. 46, 229–259 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Spelke, E. S. Principles of object perception. Cogn. Sci. 14, 29–56 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Hauser, M. D. A nonhuman primate's expectations about object motion and destination: The importance of self-propelled movement and animacy. Dev. Sci. 1, 31–37 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Santos, L. R. & Hauser, M. D. A non-human primate's understanding of solidity: Dissociations between seeing and acting. Dev. Sci. 5, F1–F7 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Santos, L. R. ‘Core knowledges’: a dissociation between spatiotemporal knowledge and contact-mechanics in a non-human primate? Dev. Sci. 7, 167–174 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Bowerman, M. in Language and Space. Language, Speech, and Communication (eds Bloom, P. & Peterson, M. A.) 385–436 (MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1996)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Choi, S., McDonough, L., Bowerman, M. & Mandler, J. M. Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. Cogn. Dev. 14, 241–268 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. in Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development (eds Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  18. Casasola, M., Cohen, L. B. & Chiarello, E. Six-month-old infants' categorization of containment spatial relations. Child Dev. 74, 679–693 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Casasola, M. & Cohen, L. B. Infant categorization of containment, support and tight-fit spatial relationships. Dev. Sci. 5, 247–264 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S. (eds) Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001)

  21. Whorf, B. L. Language, Thought, and Reality (MIT, Cambridge, 1956)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Bornstein, M. H. in Measurement of Audition and Vision in the First Year of Postnatal Life: A Methodological Overview (eds Gottlieb, G. & Krasnegor, N. A.) 253–300 (Westport, Connecticut, Ablex, 1985)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Baillargeon, R. in Advances in Infancy Research (ed. Lipsitt, C. R.-C. L. P.) 305–371 (Ablex, Norwood, 1995)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Hauser, M., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569–1579 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Werker, J. F. in An Invitation to Cognitive Science (eds Gleitman, L. & Liberman, M.) 87–106 (MIT, Cambridge, 1995)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank E. Blass, K. Condry, J. Goodman and L. Markson for comments and suggestions. This work was supported by grants from the NIH and NIH NRSA.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, 37203, USA

    Susan J. Hespos

  2. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, USA

    Elizabeth S. Spelke

Authors
  1. Susan J. Hespos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elizabeth S. Spelke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susan J. Hespos.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Movie 1

The three movies depict video versions of three different habituation trials that were used in Experiment 1 and 2. (MP4 1095 kb)

Supplementary Movie 2

The three movies depict video versions of three different habituation trials that were used in Experiment 1 and 2. (MP4 1294 kb)

Supplementary Movie 3

The three movies depict video versions of three different habituation trials that were used in Experiment 1 and 2. (MP4 1149 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hespos, S., Spelke, E. Conceptual precursors to language. Nature 430, 453–456 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02634

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02634

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing