Weikum, Whitney M.Vouloumanos, AthenaNavarra, JordiSoto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-Sebastián Gallés, NúriaWerker, Janet F.2015-05-252015-05-252013Weikum WM, Vouloumanos A, Navarra J, Soto-Faraco S, Sebastián-Gallés N, Werker JF. Age-related sensitive periods influence visual language discrimination in adults. Front Syst Neurosci. 2013;7:86. DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2013.000861662-5137http://hdl.handle.net/10230/23637Adults as well as infants have the capacity to discriminate languages based on visual speech alone. Here, we investigated whether adults' ability to discriminate languages based on visual speech cues is influenced by the age of language acquisition. Adult participants who had all learned English (as a first or second language) but did not speak French were shown faces of bilingual (French/English) speakers silently reciting sentences in either language. Using only visual speech information, adults who had learned English from birth or as a second language before the age of 6 could discriminate between French and English significantly better than chance. However, adults who had learned English as a second language after age 6 failed to discriminate these two languages, suggesting that early childhood exposure is crucial for using relevant visual speech information to separate languages visually. These findings raise the possibility that lowered sensitivity to non-native visual speech cues may contribute to the difficulties encountered when learning a new language in adulthood.application/pdfeng© 2013 Weikum, Vouloumanos, Navarra, Soto-Faraco, Sebastián-Gallés and Werker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2013.00086Visual speechLanguage discriminationSensitive periodAdultsAge of acquisitioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess