It has long been assumed that infants' ability to discriminate between languages stems from their sensitivity to speech rhythm, i.e., organized temporal structure of vowels and consonants in a language. However, the relationship between speech rhythm and language discrimination has not been directly demonstrated. Here, we use computational modeling and train models of speech perception with and without access to information about rhythm. We test these models on language discrimination, and find that access to rhythm does not affect the success of the model in replicating infant language discrimination results. Our findings challenge the relationship between rhythm and language discrimination, and have implications for theories of language acquisition.

Authors:

Ruolan Leslie Famularo: University of Maryland; Ali Aboelata: University of Maryland; Thomas Schatz: Aix-Marseille Université; Naomi H Feldman: University of Maryland