Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference

Michael C. Frank (1) , Katherine Jane Alcock (2) , Natalia Arias-Trejo (3) , Gisa Aschersleben (4) , Dare Baldwin (5) , Stéphanie Barbu (6) , Elika Bergelson (7) , Christina Bergmann (8) , Alexis K. Black (9) , Ryan Blything (10) , Maximilian P. Böhland (11) , Petra Bolitho (12) , Arielle Borovsky (13) , Shannon M. Brady (14) , Bettina Braun (15) , Anna Brown (16) , Krista Byers-Heinlein (17) , Linda E. Campbell (18) , Cara Cashon (19) , Mihye Choi (20) , Joan Christodoulou (14) , Laura K. Cirelli (21) , Stefania Conte (22) , Sarah Cordes (23) , Christopher Cox (24) , Alejandrina Cristia (25) , Rhodri Cusack (26) , Catherine Davies (27) , Maartje de Klerk (28) , Claire Delle Luche (29) , Laura de Ruiter (30) , Dhanya Dinakar (31) , Kate C. Dixon (19) , Virginie Durier (6) , Samantha Durrant (16) , Christopher Fennell (32) , Brock Ferguson (33) , Alissa Ferry (30) , Paula Fikkert (34) , Teresa Flanagan (35) , Caroline Floccia (36) , Megan Foley (37) , Tom Fritzsche (38) , Rebecca L. A. Frost (8) , Anja Gampe (39) , Judit Gervain (40) , Nayeli González-Gómez (41) , Anna Gupta (42) , Laura E. Hahn (34) , J. Kiley Hamlin (43) , Erin E. Hannon (44) , Naomi Havron (25) , Jessica Hay (45) , Mikołaj Hernik (46) , Barbara Höhle (38) , Derek M. Houston (47) , Lauren H. Howard (35) , Mitsuhiko Ishikawa (48) , Shoji Itakura (48) , Iain Jackson (30) , Krisztina V. Jakobsen (49) , Marianna Jarto (50) , Scott P. Johnson (14) , Caroline Junge (28) , Didar Karadag (51) , Natalia Kartushina (52) , Danielle J. Kellier (1) , Tamar Keren-Portnoy (24) , Kelsey Klassen (53) , Melissa Kline (54) , Eon-Suk Ko (55) , Jonathan F. Kominsky (56) , Jessica E. Kosie (5) , Haley E. Kragness (57) , Andrea A. R. Krieger (58) , Florian Krieger (59) , Jill Lany (60) , Roberto J. Lazo (61) , Michelle Lee (62) , Chloé Leservoisier (6) , Claartje Levelt (42) , Casey Lew-Williams (63) , Matthias Lippold (64) , Ulf Liszkowski (50) , Liquan Liu (31) , Steven G. Luke (65) , Rebecca A. Lundwall (65) , Viola Macchi Cassia (22) , Nivedita Mani (64) , Caterina Marino (40) , Alia Martin (12) , Meghan Mastroberardino (17) , Victoria Mateu (14) , Julien Mayor (52) , Katharina Menn (34) , Christine Michel (66) , Yusuke Moriguchi (48) , Benjamin Morris (67) , Karli M. Nave (44) , Thierry Nazzi (40) , Claire Noble (16) , Miriam A. Novack (68) , Nonah M. Olesen (19) , Adriel John Orena (69) , Mitsuhiko Ota (70) , Robin Panneton (71) , Sara Parvanezadeh Esfahani (45) , Markus Paulus (72) , Carolina Pletti (72) , Linda Polka (69) , Christine Potter (63) , Hugh Rabagliati (70) , Shruthilaya Ramachandran (73) , Jennifer L. Rennels (44) , Greg D. Reynolds (45) , Kelly C. Roth (45) , Charlotte Rothwell (2) , Doroteja Rubez (47) , Yana Ryjova (44) , Jenny Saffran (74) , Ayumi Sato (75) , Sophie Savelkouls (23) , Adena Schachner (62) , Graham Schafer (76) , Melanie S. Schreiner (64) , Amanda Seidl (13) , Mohinish Shukla (20) , Elizabeth A. Simpson (61) , Leher Singh (73) , Barbora Skarabela (70) , Gaye Soley (51) , Megha Sundara (14) , Anna Theakston (30) , Abbie Thompson (60) , Laurel J. Trainor (57) , Sandra E. Trehub (21) , Anna S. Trøan (52) , Angeline Sin-Mei Tsui (32) , Katherine Twomey (30) , Katie von Holzen (40) , Yuanyuan Wang (47) , Sandra Waxman (68) , Janet F. Werker (43) , Stephanie Wermelinger (39) , Alix Woolard (18) , Daniel Yurovsky (67) , Katharina Zahner (15) , Martin Zettersten (74) , Melanie Soderstrom (53)

1 Stanford University
2 Lancaster University
3 UNAM - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México = National Autonomous University of Mexico
4 Universität des Saarlandes [Saarbrücken]
5 University of Oregon [Eugene]
6 EthoS - Ethologie animale et humaine
7 Duke University [Durham]
8 Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
9 Haskins Laboratories
10 University of Bristol [Bristol]
11 TU Dresden - Technische Universität Dresden = Dresden University of Technology
12 Victoria University of Wellington
13 Purdue University [West Lafayette]
14 UCLA - University of California [Los Angeles]
15 University of Konstanz
16 University of Liverpool
17 Concordia University [Montreal]
18 UoN - University of Newcastle [Australia]
19 University of Louisville
20 UMass Boston - University of Massachusetts [Boston]
21 University of Toronto at Mississauga
22 UNIMIB - Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca = University of Milano-Bicocca
23 BC - Boston College
24 University of York [York, UK]
25 LSCP - Laboratoire de sciences cognitives et psycholinguistique
26 Trinity College Dublin
27 University of Leeds
28 Utrecht University [Utrecht]
29 University of Essex
30 University of Manchester [Manchester]
31 Western Sydney University
32 University of Ottawa [Ottawa]
33 Strong Analytics
34 Radboud University [Nijmegen]
35 Franklin and Marshall College
36 Plymouth University
37 Florida State University [Panama City]
38 University of Potsdam = Universität Potsdam
39 UZH - Universität Zürich [Zürich] = University of Zurich
40 LPP - UMR 8242 - Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception
41 Oxford Brookes University
42 Leiden University
43 UBC - University of British Columbia
44 WGU Nevada - University of Nevada [Las Vegas]
45 The University of Tennessee [Knoxville]
46 CEU - Central European University [Budapest, Hongrie]
47 OSU - Ohio State University [Columbus]
48 Kyoto University
49 James Madison University
50 University of Hamburg
51 Boǧaziçi üniversitesi = Boğaziçi University [Istanbul]
52 UiO - University of Oslo
53 University of Manitoba [Winnipeg]
54 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
55 CU - Chosun University
56 Harvard University [Cambridge]
57 McMaster University [Hamilton, Ontario]
58 Saarland University [Saarbrücken]
59 University of Luxembourg [Luxembourg]
60 UND - University of Notre Dame [Indiana]
61 University of Miami [Coral Gables]
62 UC San Diego - University of California [San Diego]
63 Princeton University
64 Georg-August-University = Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
65 BYU - Brigham Young University
66 IMPNSC - Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences [Leipzig]
67 University of Chicago
68 Northwestern University [Evanston]
69 McGill University = Université McGill [Montréal, Canada]
70 University of Edinburgh
71 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [Blacksburg]
72 LMU - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
73 NUS - National University of Singapore
74 University of Wisconsin-Madison
75 Shimane University
76 UOR - University of Reading

Psychological scientists have become increasingly concerned with issues related to methodology and replicability, and infancy researchers in particular face specific challenges related to replicability: For example, high-powered studies are difficult to conduct, testing conditions vary across labs, and different labs have access to different infant populations. Addressing these concerns, we report on a large-scale, multisite study aimed at (a) assessing the overall replicability of a single theoretically important phenomenon and (b) examining methodological, cultural, and developmental moderators. We focus on infants’ preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Stimuli of mothers speaking to their infants and to an adult in North American English were created using seminaturalistic laboratory-based audio recordings. Infants’ relative preference for IDS and ADS was assessed across 67 laboratories in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia using the three common methods for measuring infants’ discrimination (head-turn preference, central fixation, and eye tracking). The overall meta-analytic effect size (Cohen’s d) was 0.35, 95% confidence interval = [0.29, 0.42], which was reliably above zero but smaller than the meta-analytic mean computed from previous literature (0.67). The IDS preference was significantly stronger in older children, in those children for whom the stimuli matched their native language and dialect, and in data from labs using the head-turn preference procedure. Together, these findings replicate the IDS preference but suggest that its magnitude is modulated by development, native-language experience, and testing procedure.

Keywords: preregistered; reproducibility; experimental methods; open materials; language acquisition; open data; infant-directed speech; speech perception

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]; Cognitive Sciences; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]; Psychology and behavior; Cognitive science; Neuroscience

Michael C. Frank, Katherine Jane Alcock, Natalia Arias-Trejo, Gisa Aschersleben, Dare Baldwin, et al.. Quantifying Sources of Variability in Infancy Research Using the Infant-Directed-Speech Preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2020, 3 (1), pp.24-52. ⟨10.1177/2515245919900809⟩. ⟨hal-02509817⟩