Infants' Preference for the Predominant Stress Patterns of English Words.

Three experiments found that (1) nine-month olds listened more to two-syllable words with strong-weak stress patterns than weak-strong stress patterns; (2) six-month olds showed no preferences for stress patterns; and (3) nine-month olds showed preferences for strong-weak over weak-strong stress patterns in speech sounds passed through a low-pass filter that eliminated nonprosodic features of the speech. (BC)