Understanding speech in an accent or dialect different than one's own can be challenging. McLaughlin and Van Engen (2020) were the first to quantify this increase in listening effort using Task Evoked Pupillary Response (TEPR), a common measure of cognitive arousal. They found that monolingual, English speaking adults' pupils dilated more quickly…

Understanding how a child's language system develops into an adult-like system is a central question in language development research. An increasingly influential account proposes that the brain constantly generates top-down predictions and matches them against incoming input, with higher-level cognitive models serving to minimize prediction…

To become a native speaker, beyond obligatory rules, children need to learn systematic variation in the language, as it is present at all levels of language structure and is an integral part of linguistic knowledge. To give an example in English, speakers sometimes pronounce words ending in -ing with -in' (e.g., working vs. workin') depending on…

The perception and encoding of voice cues in consonants have been well studied, whereas there has been relatively little research on aspiration. The current study examined the encoding and perception of aspiration and voicing in Hindi, American English, and Tamil listeners when relevant cues were and were not degraded by noise. This study is novel…

Looking at hearing loss through the WHO-ICD model for disability reveals that auditory interventions do not necessarily address all of the components of auditory disability. Auditory training has been proposed as a solution to address activity-level deficits. The purpose of this study was to examine structure- and activity-level changes as the…

The present dissertation analyzed speech production and perception in early heritage Spanish-English bilingual children. Specifically, I investigated how perception and production of lexical stress develops in bilingual children. Current models of second language (L2) speech perception do not include heritage bilinguals or suprasegmental aspects…

Increasing numbers of Hispanic immigrants are entering the US (US Census Bureau, 2011) and are learning American English (AE) as a second language (L2). Many may experience difficulty in understanding AE. Accurate perception of AE vowels is important because vowels carry a large part of the speech signal (Kewley-Port, Burkle, & Lee, 2007). The…

This dissertation investigates the occurrence of an intermediate stage, termed a covert contrast, in the acquisition of Mandarin Tone 2 (T2) and Tone 3 (T3) by adult speakers of American English. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable distinction produced by language learners that is not perceived by native speakers of the target language…

Speech production and perception are inextricably linked systems. Speakers modify their speech in response to listener characteristics, such as age, hearing ability, and language background. Listener-oriented modifications in speech production, commonly referred to as clear speech, have also been found to affect speech perception by enhancing…

Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty producing and perceiving non-native phonological contrasts. Even highly proficient bilinguals, who have been exposed to an L2 for long periods of time, struggle with difficult contrasts, such as /r/-/l/ for Japanese learners of English. To account for the relative ease or difficulty…

In traditional aphasia testing and treatment, clinicians administer a standardized aphasia test that measures language impairment, followed by a linguistic approach to treatment. Many clinicians have argued the need for emphasis on functional communication, and third party payers desire functional information to determine patient progress. This…

The Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (PPH, Cabrelli Amaro & Rothman, 2010) attempts to reconcile evidence suggesting some L2 learners, however rare, attain native-like L2 phonological systems with the observation that most do not. Considering existing L2 phonology research, it is not clear that phonological differences between early and…

It has long been argued that prosodic cues may facilitate syntax acquisition (e.g., Morgan, 1986). Previous studies have shown that infants are sensitive to violations of typical correlations between clause-final prosodic cues (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1987) and that prosody facilitates memory for strings of words (Soderstrom et al., 2005). This…

This dissertation investigated the perception and production of dialectally variant prosodic properties in Korean. The current study was focused on the tonal system of North Kyungsang and South Cholla Korean to understand how lexical pitch accent, which is a property of the North Kyungsang variety, is realized by native and non-native speakers of…

Due to their unique profile as childhood bilinguals whose first language (L1) became weaker than their second language (L2), heritage speakers can shed light on three key issues in bilingualism--timing, input, and cross-linguistic interaction. The heritage speakers of focus in this dissertation are Korean second generation immigrants mainly…