Three picture-word interference (PWI) experiments assessed the extent to which embedded subset words are activated during the identification of spoken superset words (e.g., "bone" in "trombone"). Participants named aloud pictures (e.g., "brain") while spoken distractors were presented. In the critical condition,…

A key objective when fitting hearing aids to children is to maximize the audibility of high frequency speech cues which are critical in the understanding of spoken English. Recent advances in digital signal processing have enabled the development of hearing aids which offer linear frequency transposition as a new way of accessing these important…

The present study investigated the mechanisms underlying perceptual compensation for assimilation in novel words. During training, participants learned canonical versions of novel spoken words (e.g., "decibot") presented in isolation. Following exposure to a second set of novel words the next day, participants carried out a phoneme…

Speech utterances are more than the linear concatenation of individual phonemes or words. They are organized by prosodic structures comprising phonological units of different sizes (e.g., syllable, foot, word, and phrase) and the prominence relations among them. As the linguistic structure of spoken languages, prosody serves an important function…

Listeners are faced with enormous variation in pronunciation, yet they rarely have difficulty understanding speech. Although much research has been devoted to figuring out how listeners deal with variability, virtually none (outside of sociolinguistics) has focused on the source of the variation itself. The current experiments explore whether…

The primary aim of this dissertation was to investigate the relationship between speech perception and speech production difficulties among Japanese second language (L2) learners of English, in their learning complex syllable structures. Japanese L2 learners and American English controls were tested in a categorical ABX discrimination task of…

Six Mandarin affricates (i.e., zh[ts], ch[ts[superscript h]], z[ts], c[ts[superscript h]], j[tc], q[tc[superscript h]), which are not universally present in other languages, have been extensively challenging for learners of Mandarin Chinese. In the current study, perception of these affricates was investigated via an experiment in which native…

The aim of this pilot study was to identify the most common speech sound confusions of 5 Norwegian cochlear implanted post-lingually deafened adults. We played recorded nonwords, aCa, iCi and bVb, to our informants, asked them to repeat what they heard, recorded their repetitions and transcribed these phonetically. We arranged the collected data…

Speech is not a purely auditory signal. From around 2 months of age, infants are able to correctly match the vowel they hear with the appropriate articulating face. However, there is no behavioral evidence of integrated audiovisual perception until 4 months of age, at the earliest, when an illusory percept can be created by the fusion of the…

Acquisition of phoneme-grapheme correspondences, a key concept of the alphabetic principle, was examined in young children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) using a semantic association strategy embedded in two interventions, the Children's Early Intervention and Foundations for Literacy. Single-subject design experiments using multiple…

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of 3 self-administered strategies for auditory training that might improve speech perception by adult users of cochlear implants. The strategies are based, respectively, on discriminating isolated words, words in sentences, and phonemes in nonsense syllables. Method: Participants were 18 normal-hearing adults…

Purpose: To describe cochlear implant users' phoneme labeling, discrimination, and prototypes for a vowel and a sibilant contrast, and to assess the effects of 1 year's experience with prosthetic hearing. Method: Based on naturally produced clear examples of "boot," "beet," "said," and "shed" by 1 male and 1 female speaker, continua with 13…

At the level of clinical speech/language evaluation, the repetition type of conduction aphasia is characterized by repetition difficulties concomitant with reduced short-term memory capacities, in the presence of fluent spontaneous speech as well as unimpaired naming and reading abilities. It is still unsettled which dysfunctions of the…

Are speakers equipped with preferences concerning grammatical structures that are absent in their language? We examine this question by investigating the sensitivity of English speakers to the sonority of onset clusters. Linguistic research suggests that certain onset clusters are universally preferred (e.g., "bd" is greater than "lb"). We…

This article honours Adele Miccio's life work by reflecting on the utility of phonetic transcription. The first section reviews the literature on cases where children whose speech appears to neutralize a contrast in the adult language are found on closer examination to produce a contrast ("covert contrast"). This study presents evidence…