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. 1994 Aug 2;91(16):7473–7476. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.16.7473

A model of prenatal acquisition of speech parameters.

B S Seebach 1, N Intrator 1, P Lieberman 1, L N Cooper 1
PMCID: PMC44423  PMID: 8052606

Abstract

An unsupervised neural network model inductively acquires the ability to distinguish categorically the stop consonants of English, in a manner consistent with prenatal and early postnatal auditory experience, and without reference to any specialized knowledge of linguistic structure or the properties of speech. This argues against the common assumption that linguistic knowledge, and speech perception in particular, cannot be learned and must therefore be innately specified.

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Selected References

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