Speech sensorimotor relationships in francophone preschoolers and adults: Adaptation to real-time auditory feedback perturbations

Purpose: This study investigates the development of sensorimotor relationships by examining adaptation to real-time perturbations of auditory feedback. Method: Acoustic signals were recorded while preschoolers and adult speakers of Canadian French produced several utterances of the front rounded vowel /ø/ for which F2 was gradually shifted up to a maximum of 40%. Results: The findings indicate that, although preschool-aged children produced overall similar responses to the perturbed feedback, they displayed significantly more trial-to-trial variability than adults. Furthermore, whereas the magnitude of the adaptation in adults was positively correlated with the slope of the perceptual categorical function, the amount of adaptation in children was linked to the variability of their productions in the baseline condition. These patterns suggest that the immature motor control observed in children, which contributes to increased variability in their speech production, plays a role in shaping adaptive behavior, as it allows children to explore articulatory/acoustic spaces and learn sensorimotor relationships.