This study investigates the effects of native language experience and phonetic properties on the discrimination of labial-velar versus labial and velar contrasts, as well as voicing contrasts in labials, velars, and labial-velars. Research indicates that phonological perceptions are influenced by native language experience and the specific…

We inquired whether introducing variability into a word-learning task would facilitate, inhibit, or have a neutral effect on adults' speech production and language learning. Twenty young adults from the U.S. Midwest with typical development participated. They repeated four novel words 10 times sequentially (blocked practice) and another four novel…

In speech perception tasks with ambiguous bottom-up information, lexical processes have been shown to influence listener responses, such as in phoneme categorization tasks (Ganong, 1980). Proponents of interactive theories of speech perception and spoken word recognition assert this influence is a top-down feedback mechanism that can affect…

While phonetic training in laboratory settings has been shown to be helpful for second language (L2) sounds learning in prior studies , it is still open to debate whether a perception- or a production-based approach can better help adults learn L2 sounds in classroom settings. This study aimed to fill this knowledge gap. The participants were…

There is no one-to-one mapping between speech acoustics and individual speech sounds; instead, the acoustic cues produced for individual speech sounds show wide variability both within and across talkers. Nonetheless, listeners perceive the speech of familiar and novel talkers with ease. It is theorized that listeners achieve this feat by…

This study explored the initial stages of adult second language (L2) learning with a special focus on the acquisition of the target language sound system. The aim was to analyze the longitudinal development of Spanish stop voicing contrasts in an immersion learning context. Native English-speaking late learners of Spanish provided production data…

Purpose: To better understand the role of tongue visibility in speech, this study compared the spatiotemporal patterns of silent versus audible speech for lingual consonants of American English. Kinematic data were obtained for articulatory features assumed to be visually salient, including tongue movement (anterior displacement and midsagittal…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the relation of tongue--jaw coupling to phonetic distinctiveness of vowels in persons at different stages (i.e., early, middle, late) of bulbar motor involvement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and healthy controls. Method: The pattern of spatial tongue-jaw coupling was derived from 11…

One primary problem in extremely preterm children is the occurrence of atypical language development. The aim of this study was to explore the components of language (articulatory phonetics, lexicon and syntax) in comprehension and production in extremely preterm children between the 4th and 5th year of age. The language section of the Preschool…

Interactive models of language production predict that it should be possible to observe long-distance interactions; effects that arise at one level of processing influence multiple subsequent stages of representation and processing. We examine the hypothesis that disruptions arising in nonform-based levels of planning--specifically, lexical…

This study investigates sources of phonological cross-linguistic influence (CLI) at the initial stages of third language (L3) acquisition in light of the predictions of the second language (L2) Status Factor Model, the Typological Primacy Model, the Cumulative Enhancement Model, the Linguistic Proximity Model and the Scalpel Model. The productions…

In previous work, 11-month-old infants were able to learn rules about the relation of the consonants in CVCV words from just four examples. The rules involved phonetic feature relations (same voicing or same place of articulation), and infants' learning was impeded when pairs of words allowed alternative possible generalizations (e.g. two words…

Purpose: This study describes a phonetic complexity-based approach for speech intelligibility and articulatory precision testing using preliminary data from talkers with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Method: Eight talkers with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and 8 healthy controls produced a list of 16 low and high complexity words. Sixty-four…

Purpose: We examined how consonant perception is affected by a preceding speech carrier simulated in the same or a different room, for different classes of consonants. Carrier room, carrier length, and carrier length/target room uncertainty were manipulated. A phonetic feature analysis tested which phonetic categories are influenced by the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of two different speech therapy approaches, a traditional motor-phonetic approach and a linguistic-phonological approach, on the speech and health-related quality of life in Dutch-speaking children with a cleft palate with or without a cleft lip (CP ± L) between 4 and 12 years old.…