Word Segmentation and Multilingualism

When we listen to someone speak, there are no obvious pauses between words, yet we can easily figure out where one word ends and another begins. This skill, called word segmentation, is essential for learning any language. This project explores how infants and adults who grow up with more than one languages learn to find words in speech. By studying their usage of various segmentation cues, we aim to understand how multilingual experiences shape the brain’s ability to manage multiple languages. This research could offer new insights into how our brains adapt to complex language environments and what it means for learning new languages.

To investigate this, we use eye-tracking technology to study how infants and adults process speech. Participants listen to sentences in one or more languages, like English and Cantonese, while their eye movements and pupil responses are tracked. This allows us to see how they respond to different cues in speech, such as tone or stress, that help them recognize word boundaries. By comparing the performance of multilingual and monolingual listeners, we can explore how experience with multiple languages influences the ability to segment words from continuous speech.