A Neurophysiological Investigation of Non-native Phoneme Perception by Dutch and German Listeners

Investigating the degree of similarity between infants' and adults' representation of speech is critical to our understanding of infants' ability to acquire language. Phoneme perception plays a crucial role in language processing, and numerous behavioral studies have demonstrated similar capacities in infants and adults, but are these subserved by the same neural substrates or networks? In this article, we review event-related potential (ERP) results obtained in infants during phoneme discrimination tasks and compare them to results from the adult literature. The striking similarities observed both in behavior and ERPs between initial and mature stages suggest a continuity in processing and neural structure. We argue that infants have access at the beginning of life to phonemic representations, which are modified without training or implicit instruction, but by the statistical distributions of speech input in order to converge to the native phonemic categories.

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Are orthographic effects language specific? The influence of second language orthography on second language phoneme awareness

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716416000175 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 233-262 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

CAROLYN PYTLYK

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

English Learners ◽

First Language ◽

Intermediate Level ◽

Phoneme Awareness ◽

Counting Task ◽

Phoneme Perception ◽

Two Parameters

ABSTRACTThis research investigated first language (L1) and second language (L2) orthographic effects on L2 phoneme perception. Twenty-five native English learners of Russian (n = 13) and Mandarin (n = 12) participated in an auditory phoneme counting task, using stimuli organized along two parameters: consistency and homophony. The learners more successfully counted phonemes in L2 words with consistent letter–phoneme correspondences (e.g., всё /fsʲɔ/, three letters/three phonemes) than in words with inconsistent correspondences (e.g., звать /zvatʲ/, five letters/four phonemes), indicating that L2 phoneme awareness is influenced by L2 orthography and that orthographic effects are not limited to the L1. In addition, the lack of any L1 homophone effects suggests that L2 orthographic effects overrode any potential L1 orthographic interference for these intermediate-level learners, suggesting orthographic effects may be language specific.

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Perceptual discrimination measure of non-native phoneme perception in early and late Spanish-English and Japanese-English bilinguals

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.5147847 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 148 (4) ◽

pp. 2813-2813

Author(s):

Miwako Hisagi ◽

Eve Higby ◽

Mike Zandona ◽

Justin Kent ◽

Daniela Castillo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Discrimination ◽

Phoneme Perception ◽

Japanese English

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Phoneme Feature Perception in Noise by Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Subjects

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.2801.87 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 87-95 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Sandra Gordon-Salant

Keyword(s):

Signal To Noise Ratio ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Hearing Impaired ◽

Noise Condition ◽

Percent Correct ◽

Vowel Context ◽

Hearing Status ◽

Vowel Recognition ◽

Phoneme Perception ◽

The Individual

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners perceive phoneme features differently in noise and to determine whether phoneme perception changes as a fuction of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). Consonant-vowel recognition by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners was assessed in quiet and in three noise conditions. Analysis of total percent correct recognition scores revealed significant effects of hearing status, S/N, and vowel context. Patterns of phoneme errors were analyzed by INDSCAL, Derived consonant features that accounted for phoneme errors by both subject groups were similar to ones reported by other investigators. However, weightings associated with the individual features varied with changes in noise condition. Although hearing-impaired listeners exhibited poorer overall nonsense syllable recognition scores in noise than normal-hearing listeners, no specific set of features emerged from the multidimensional scaling procedures that could uniquely account for this performance deficit.

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