ASA 129th Meeting - Washington, DC - 1995 May 30 .. Jun 06
5pSC10. Effects of perceptual learning on the production of a non-native
contrast.
Reiko A. Yamada
Yoh'ichi Tohkura
ATR Human Info. Process. Res. Labs., 2-2, Hikaridai, Seika, Soraku, Kyoto,
619-02, Japan
Ann R. Bradlow
David B. Pisoni
Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN 47408
Previous research has shown a significant correlation between the
perception and production of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers [Yamada
et al., Proc. ICSLP94, 2023--2026 (1994)]. The present study further
investigated this perception-production link by examining the transfer of
training in perception to production of a non-native contrast. Twelve
monolingual Japanese speakers were trained to perceive the English /r/--/l/
contrast using a high-variability training program [Lively et al.,
2076--2087]. Recordings were also made of the trainees' productions of English
/r/-/l/ minimal pairs before and after the perceptual training. These pretest
and post-test recordings were then evaluated perceptually by American listeners
who were presented with pairs of tokens in an A-B test format. As expected,
subjects' accuracy on the perceptual task improved by about 16% after 45
training sessions. More importantly, subjects' productions at pretest and at
post-test were distinguishable by American listeners. More post-test
productions were judged as ``better'' tokens of English /r/ and /l/ than
pretest productions. Implications for the perception-production link in the
acquisition of novel phonetic contrasts will be discussed. [Work supported by
NIH and ATR.]