In this dissertation, I investigated how cognitive resources as well as formal, and informal language experience impact language learning in two studies. In the first study (Chapter 2), I examined the learning of Spanish grammatical gender by Chinese international students who were studying abroad in the US. The goal of that study was to uncover…

The relationship between speech perception and production has been debated for a long time. The Motor Theory of speech perception (Liberman et al., 1989) claims that perceiving speech is identifying the intended articulatory gestures rather than perceiving the sound patterns. It seems to suggest that speech production precedes speech perception,…

This dissertation investigates the ways in which experience with lexical tone influences the perception of musical melody, and how musical training influences the perception of lexical tone. The central theoretical basis for the study is a model of perceptual learning, Reverse Hierarchy Theory (Ahissar et al., 2009), in which cognitive processes…