# Social influences on sensorimotor integration of speech production and perception during early vocal learning

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2022 · $263,575

## Abstract

Infants show dramatic changes in their ability to perceive and produce vocal sounds of their native language
over the first year of life. Our conceptual framework interprets this plasticity in the context of encoding reward
prediction errors that play a role in associative learning. Our studies will test an important mechanistic
question: the extent to which linked perceptual and motor learning of speech-like vocalizations in infants with
different histories of social-vocal experience is regulated by contingent pairings of babbling with social-vocal
reinforcement by caregivers. Contingent pairings of a signal with a reinforcer induce learning of a prediction in
models of associative learning. Thus when social-vocal reward by caregivers is contingent on babbling, infants
learn that their utterances predict social reinforcement accompanied by mature vocal patterns and begin to
produce speech-like forms that emulate the phonological pattern provided by caregivers. We posit that social
reinforcement is a potent driver of learning during the earliest stages of vocal development (6-12 months) in
infants with typical hearing (TH). In contrast, infants with congenital hearing loss (HL) will have an
impoverished history of social-vocal interactions that impair early vocal learning. However, after hearing
remediation via a cochlear implant, social-vocal reinforcement will facilitate learning above and beyond gains
due to improved hearing levels alone. Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that HL infants are poorer vocal learners
because they do not benefit from contingent pairings of babbling with social-vocal reward to the same extent
as TH infants. We will compare the ability of infants with TH versus HL to learn to produce new vocal forms
based on experimental manipulations: social-vocal reinforcement by caregivers will be either temporally
contingent or random with respect to their infants’ babbling. We predict that babbling-contingent social-vocal
reinforcement will be less effective in promoting learning of more speech-like patterns in HL infants, despite
matching hearing levels between contingent and random-control groups within both HL and TH conditions.
Subsequent remediation of hearing via receipt of a cochlear implant will facilitate vocal production learning
based on babbling-contingent social-vocal reward. A parallel Aim 2 will test whether degree of learning to
produce the new vocal forms in Aim 1 can predict improved perception of those same sounds. If social-reward
based learning strengthens integration between perception and production, then contingent training should
improve both productive (Aim 1) and perceptual (Aim 2) learning. We predict that contingent reinforcement will
induce correlations between production and perception of vocal sounds in TH infants but will exert limited
effects in HL infants, with lowest correlations in infants with more limited production learning. Remediation of
hearing following cochlear implantation will enable s...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10452355
- **Project number:** 1R21DC019773-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Sarah W Bottjer
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $263,575
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-05-12 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10452355

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10452355, Social influences on sensorimotor integration of speech production and perception during early vocal learning (1R21DC019773-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10452355. Licensed CC0.

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