Developing a Cross-Cultural Annotation System and MetaCorpus for Studying Infants’ Real World Language Experience

Abstract

<jats:p>Recent issues around reproducibility, best practices, and cultural bias impact naturalistic observational approaches as much as experimental approaches, but there has been less focus on this area. Here, we present a new approach that leverages cross-laboratory collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts to examine important psychological questions. We illustrate this approach with a particular project that examines similarities and differences in children’s early experiences with language. This project develops a comprehensive start-to-finish analysis pipeline by developing a flexible and systematic annotation system, and implementing this system across a sampling from a “metacorpus” of audiorecordings of diverse language communities. This resource is publicly available for use, sensitive to cultural differences, and flexible to address a variety of research questions. It is also uniquely suited for use in the development of tools for automated analysis.</jats:p>