Dialects vary in their allophonic patterns, which can affect listeners' phonological and lexical representations. I explore how different exposure to dialect-specific allophonic patterns for two vowels in American English, /ae ai/, affects listeners' lexical processing behaviors across three perception tasks: perceptual similarity, priming, and…

An often overlooked but fundamental issue for any comprehensive model of visual-word recognition is the representation of diacritical vowels: Do diacritical and nondiacritical vowels share their abstract letter representations? Recent research suggests that the answer is "yes" in languages where diacritics indicate suprasegmental…

Purpose: This study examined vocal hyperfunction (VH) using voice onset time (VOT). We hypothesized that speakers with VH would produce shorter VOTs, indicating increased laryngeal tension, and more variable VOTs, indicating disordered vocal motor control. Method: We enrolled 32 adult women with VH (aged 20-74 years) and 32 age- and sex-matched…

Pronunciation plays a crucial role in oral communication within a second language. Recently, the interest in English language learning among elderly adults has led to increased participation of older learners in lifelong education programs in Korea. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies on this specific learner group. This article…

Many details in reading curricula (e.g., the order of materials) have analogs in laboratory studies of learning (e.g., blocking/interleaving). Principles of learning from cognitive science could be used to structure these materials to optimize learning, but they are not commonly applied. Recent work bridges this gap by "field testing"…

Although extensive research has focused on the perceptual abilities of second language (L2) learners, a significant gap persists in understanding how cognitive functions like phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and nonverbal intelligence (IQ) impact L2 speech perception. This study sets out to investigate the discrimination of L2 English…

This study examined how discriminability and prototypicality of nonnative phones modulate the amplitude of the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) event-related brain potential. We hypothesized that if a frequently occurring (standard) stimulus is not prototypical to a listener, a weaker predictive memory trace will be formed and a smaller MMN will be…

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…

Successful word recognition requires that listeners attend to differences that are phonemic in the language while also remaining flexible to the variation introduced by different voices and accents. Previous work has demonstrated that American-English-learning 19-month-olds are able to balance these demands: although one-off one-feature…

The present dissertation explores the effect of exposure to non-native speech via foreign film on non-native speech production and perception. In order to explore potential effects, two main experiments were developed, which examined French production and perception by monolingual native speakers of English before and after exposure to French…

Phonotactic patterns are generalizations that govern the order of consonants and vowels, within words and syllables. Certain second-order phonotactic patterns--those that relate multiple sounds within a syllable, such as "if the vowel is [near-close near-front unrounded vowel], then [s] can only appear at the end of the…

Purpose: This study investigates consonant and vowel accuracy and whole-word variability (also called "token-to-token variability" or "token-to-token inconsistency") in bilingual Spanish-English and monolingual English-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared to their bilingual and monolingual peers with normal…

Every language has unique phonotactics, general rules about how phonemes combine to make syllables. We know that people can implicitly learn new phonotactic rules in the laboratory, and these rules then affect their speech errors. Some types of rules, however, require a consolidation period before they influence speech errors. Two experiments are…

Purpose: Depicting the development pattern of vowel perception for children with normal hearing (NH) and cochlear implants (CIs) would be useful for clinicians and school teachers to monitor children's auditory rehabilitation. The study was to investigate the development of Mandarin Chinese vowel perception for Mandarin Chinese native-speaking…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which phonological competition and semantic priming influence lexical access in school-aged children with cochlear implants (CIs) and children with normal acoustic hearing. Method: Participants included children who were 5-10 years of age with either normal hearing (n = 41) or…