Listeners are known to track statistical regularities in speech. Yet, which temporal cues are encoded is unclear. This study tested effects of talker-specific habitual speech rate and talker-independent average speech rate (heard over a longer period of time) on the perception of the temporal Dutch vowel contrast /?/-/a:/. First, Experiment 1…

How are languages learned, and to what extent are learning mechanisms similar in infant native-language (L1) and adult second-language (L2) acquisition? In terms of vocabulary acquisition, we know from the infant literature that the ability to discriminate similar-sounding words at a particular age does not guarantee successful word-meaning…

The auditory memory loss of same-different vowel discrimination experiments with a silent delay appear to be asymptotic at about three seconds, whether measured by correct discrimination or by contextual influences of the first vowel on identification of the second. (Author/PN)