Listen-and-repeat Training in the Learning of Non-native Consonant Duration Contrasts: Influence of Consonant Type As Reflected by MMN and Behavioral Methods

Overview

Journal J Psycholinguist Res

Publisher Springer

Specialty Psychology

Date 2022 Mar 21

PMID 35312934

Authors

Antti Saloranta

Leena Maria Heikkola

Maija S Peltola

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Phonological duration differences in quantity languages can be problematic for second language learners whose native language does not use duration contrastively. Recent studies have found improvement in the processing of non-native vowel duration contrasts with the use of listen-and-repeat training, and the current study explores the efficacy of similar methodology on consonant duration contrasts. 18 adult participants underwent two days of listen-and-repeat training with pseudoword stimuli containing either a sibilant or a stop consonant contrast. The results were examined with psychophysiological event-related potentials (mismatch negativity and P3), behavioral discrimination tests and a production task. The results revealed no training-related effects in the event-related potentials or the production task, but behavioral discrimination performance improved. Furthermore, differences emerged between the processing of the two consonant types. The findings suggest that stop consonants are processed more slowly than the sibilants, and the findings are discussed with regard to possible segmentation difficulties.

References

Picton T . The P300 wave of the human event-related potential. J Clin Neurophysiol. 1992; 9(4):456-79. DOI: 10.1097/00004691-199210000-00002. View

Menning H, Imaizumi S, Zwitserlood P, Pantev C . Plasticity of the human auditory cortex induced by discrimination learning of non-native, mora-timed contrasts of the Japanese language. Learn Mem. 2002; 9(5):253-67. PMC: 187135. DOI: 10.1101/lm.49402. View

Saloranta A, Alku P, Peltola M . Listen-and-repeat training improves perception of second language vowel duration: Evidence from mismatch negativity (MMN) and N1 responses and behavioral discrimination. Int J Psychophysiol. 2019; 147:72-82. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.11.005. View

Tremblay K, Kraus N, Carrell T, McGee T . Central auditory system plasticity: generalization to novel stimuli following listening training. J Acoust Soc Am. 1998; 102(6):3762-73. DOI: 10.1121/1.420139. View

Naatanen R, Lehtokoski A, Lennes M, Cheour M, Huotilainen M, Iivonen A . Language-specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic brain responses. Nature. 1997; 385(6615):432-4. DOI: 10.1038/385432a0. View

Kok A . On the utility of P3 amplitude as a measure of processing capacity. Psychophysiology. 2001; 38(3):557-77. DOI: 10.1017/s0048577201990559. View

Logan J, Lively S, Pisoni D . Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: a first report. J Acoust Soc Am. 1991; 89(2):874-86. PMC: 3518834. DOI: 10.1121/1.1894649. View

Iverson P, Evans B . Learning English vowels with different first-language vowel systems II: Auditory training for native Spanish and German speakers. J Acoust Soc Am. 2009; 126(2):866-77. DOI: 10.1121/1.3148196. View

Tajima K, Kato H, Rothwell A, Akahane-Yamada R, Munhall K . Training English listeners to perceive phonemic length contrasts in Japanese. J Acoust Soc Am. 2008; 123(1):397-413. DOI: 10.1121/1.2804942. View

10.

Kujala T, Tervaniemi M, Schroger E . The mismatch negativity in cognitive and clinical neuroscience: theoretical and methodological considerations. Biol Psychol. 2006; 74(1):1-19. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.06.001. View

11.

OLDFIELD R . The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 1971; 9(1):97-113. DOI: 10.1016/0028-3932(71)90067-4. View

12.

Naatanen R . The perception of speech sounds by the human brain as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic equivalent (MMNm). Psychophysiology. 2001; 38(1):1-21. DOI: 10.1017/s0048577201000208. View

13.

Tsukada K, Hirata Y, Roengpitya R . Cross-language perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts: comparison of listeners from different first language backgrounds. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2014; 57(3):805-14. DOI: 10.1044/2014_JSLHR-S-12-0416. View

14.

Tamminen H, Peltola M, Kujala T, Naatanen R . Phonetic training and non-native speech perception--New memory traces evolve in just three days as indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and behavioural measures. Int J Psychophysiol. 2015; 97(1):23-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.020. View

15.

Sutton S, Tueting P, Zubin J, John E . Information delivery and the sensory evoked potential. Science. 1967; 155(3768):1436-9. DOI: 10.1126/science.155.3768.1436. View

16.

Bradlow A, Pisoni D, Tohkura Y . Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: IV. Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production. J Acoust Soc Am. 1997; 101(4):2299-310. PMC: 3507383. DOI: 10.1121/1.418276. View

17.

Koerner T, Zhang Y, Nelson P, Wang B, Zou H . Neural indices of phonemic discrimination and sentence-level speech intelligibility in quiet and noise: A P3 study. Hear Res. 2017; 350:58-67. DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2017.04.009. View

18.

Shestakova A, Huotilainen M, Ceponiene R, Cheour M . Event-related potentials associated with second language learning in children. Clin Neurophysiol. 2003; 114(8):1507-12. DOI: 10.1016/s1388-2457(03)00134-2. View

19.

Ylinen S, Huuskonen M, Mikkola K, Saure E, Sinkkonen T, Paavilainen P . Predictive coding of phonological rules in auditory cortex: A mismatch negativity study. Brain Lang. 2016; 162:72-80. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2016.08.007. View

20.

Strange W, Dittmann S . Effects of discrimination training on the perception of /r-l/ by Japanese adults learning English. Percept Psychophys. 1984; 36(2):131-45. DOI: 10.3758/bf03202673. View