Stimuli that are fluently processed are more likely to be called "old" on a recognition memory test compared with less fluently processed stimuli. The goal of the current study was to investigate how the perceived diagnostic value of fluency is affected by a match between encoding and test conditions. During the encoding phase,…

Much of what we know about the development of listeners' word segmentation strategies originates from the artificial language-learning literature. However, many artificial speech streams designed to study word segmentation lack a salient cue found in all natural languages: utterance boundaries. In this study, participants listened to a…

Learners of a foreign language (FL) typically have to learn to process sounds that do not exist in their first language (L1). As this is known to be difficult for adults, in particular, it is important for FL pedagogy to be informed by phonetic research. This study examined the role of FL learners' previous linguistic experience in the processing…

We consider how orthography activates sounds that are in a noncontrastive relationship in the second language (L2) and for which only one variant exists in the first language (L1). Participants were L1 English / L2 Spanish and native Spanish listeners. Intervocalically, Spanish graphemes "b d g" correspond phonetically to stops and…

Sensory judgments improve with practice. Such perceptual learning is often thought to reflect an increase in perceptual sensitivity. However, it may also represent a decrease in response bias, with unpracticed observers acting in part on a priori hunches rather than sensory evidence. To examine whether this is the case, 55 observers practiced…

This study examines the influence of experience with a second language (L2) on the perception of phonological contrasts in a third language (L3). This study contributes to L3 phonology by examining the influence of L2 phonological perception abilities on the perception of an L3 at the beginner level. Participants were native speakers of Korean…

This study reports on the acquisition of quantity contrasts in Guina-ang Bontok, an indigenous language spoken in the Philippines. Four-year-old and 5-year-old children's perception and production of quantity contrasts were examined using a pair of names that contrast in the quantity of the medial nasal. Frequencies of the quantity contrast were…

Students in South East Asia often struggle with English /l/ and /r/. This study therefore set out to examine how Taiwanese pupils' perception of these sounds is influenced by cross-language effects. Most Taiwanese students have Mandarin as L1 and Taiwanese as L2 or vice versa, and English as L3. A same-different discrimination experiment was…

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between vocabulary size and the speed and accuracy of lexical processing in preschoolers between the ages of 30 and 46 months using an automatic eye tracking task based on the looking-while-listening paradigm (Fernald, Zangl, Portillo, & Marchman, 2008) and mispronunciation paradigm…

This study investigates how fluent second-language (L2) learners of English produce and perceive the /ae/-/?/ vowel contrast of Southwestern American English. Two learner groups are examined: (1) early, proficient English speakers who were raised by Spanish-speaking families but who became dominant in English during childhood and, as adults, lack…

Bilingual speakers must acquire the phonemic inventory of 2 languages and need to recognize spoken words cross-linguistically; a demanding job potentially made even more difficult due to dialectal variation, an intrinsic property of speech. The present work examines how bilinguals perceive second language (L2) accented speech and where…

In this study, segmental and prosodic aspects of word repetition and non-word repetition in typically developing children aged four to six years were investigated. Focus was on developmental differences, and on how tonal word accent and word length affect segment production accuracy. Prosodically controlled words and non-words were repeated by 44…

Although previous research has documented the relationship between voice-onset time (VOT) and the production of foreign accent in English and Spanish, less is known about the role of this cue in perception. VOT refers to the aspiration that occurs between the release of a stop consonant and the beginning of the following segment. In Spanish and…

This article reports on second language perception of non-native contrasts. The study specifically tests the perceptual assimilation model (PAM) by examining American learners' ability to discriminate Arabic contrasts. Twenty two native American speakers enrolled in a university level Arabic language program took part in a forced choice AXB…

In 4 word-translation experiments, we examined the different representational frameworks theory (Crutch & Warrington, 2005; 2010) that concrete words are represented primarily by category, whereas abstract words are represented by association. In our experiments, Chinese-English bilingual speakers were presented with an auditory Chinese word…