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Dive into the research topics where Carolyn Quam is active.

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Featured researches published by Carolyn Quam.


Journal of Experimental Child Psychology | 2016

Can bilingual children turn one language off? Evidence from perceptual switching.

Leher Singh; Carolyn Quam

Bilinguals have the sole option of conversing in one language in spite of knowing two languages. The question of how bilinguals alternate between their two languages, activating and deactivating one language, is not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the development of this process by researching bilingual childrens abilities to selectively integrate lexical tone based on its relevance in the language being used. In particular, the current study sought to determine the effects of global conversation-level cues versus local (within-word phonotactic) cues on childrens tone integration in newly learned words. Words were taught to children via a conversational narrative, and word recognition was investigated using the intermodal preferential-looking paradigm. Children were tested on recognition of words with stimuli that were either matched or mismatched in tone in both English and Mandarin conversations. Results demonstrated that 3- to 4-year-olds did not adapt their interpretation of lexical tone changes to the language being spoken. In contrast, 4- to 5-year-olds were able to do so when supported by informative within-word cues. Results suggest that preschool children are capable of selectively activating a single language given word-internal cues to language.


Trends in Cognitive Sciences | 2015

Apples and Oranges: Developmental Discontinuities in Spoken-Language Processing?

Sarah C. Creel; Carolyn Quam

Much research focuses on speech processing in infancy, sometimes generating the impression that speech-sound categories do not develop further. Yet other studies suggest substantial plasticity throughout mid-childhood. Differences between infant versus child and adult experimental methods currently obscure how language processing changes across childhood, calling for approaches that span development.


PLOS ONE | 2017

Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones in Newly Learned Words in Accordance with the Language Context

Carolyn Quam; Sarah C. Creel

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like—not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context.


Child Development | 2012

Development in Children's Interpretation of Pitch Cues to Emotions

Carolyn Quam; Daniel Swingley


Journal of Memory and Language | 2010

Phonological knowledge guides 2-year-olds' and adults' interpretation of salient pitch contours in word learning

Carolyn Quam; Daniel Swingley


Journal of Experimental Child Psychology | 2014

Processing of lexical stress cues by young children

Carolyn Quam; Daniel Swingley


Developmental Science | 2017

Infant learning is influenced by local spurious generalizations

LouAnn Gerken; Carolyn Quam


Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society | 2008

Relating intonational pragmatics to the pitch realizations of highly frequent words in English speech to infants

Carolyn Quam; Jiahong Yuan; Daniel Swingley


Laboratory Phonology | 2017

The Distribution of Talker Variability Impacts Infants’ Word Learning

Carolyn Quam; Sara Knight; LouAnne Gerken


Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research | 2017

Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency

Carolyn Quam; Sarah C. Creel

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Daniel Swingley

University of Pennsylvania

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Sarah C. Creel

University of California

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Jiahong Yuan

University of Pennsylvania

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Leher Singh

National University of Singapore

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