Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: IV. Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production

1997/04/01 by Ann R. Bradlow, David B. Pisoni, Reiko Akahane-Yamada +1 · 853 citations
Psychology · Computer Science · Social Sciences · Medicine · #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Speech Recognition and Synthesis #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Perception #Psychology #Perceptual learning #Production (economics) #Test (biology) #Identification (biology) #Audiology #Contrast (vision) #Speech production #Speech recognition #Computer science #Artificial intelligence #Medicine

paper · open access · doi:10.1121/1.418276

published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101(4), 2299-2310 (Acoustical Society of America)

openalex publication_date 1997/04/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of training in/r/-/l/ perceptual identification on /r/-/l/ production by adult Japanese speakers. Subjects were recorded producing English words that contrast /r/ and /l/ before and after participating in an extended period of /r/-/l/ identification training using a high-variability presentation format. All subjects showed significant perceptual learning as a result of the training program, and this perceptual learning generalized to novel items spoken by new talkers. Improvement in the Japanese trainees' /r/-/l/ spoken utterances as a consequence of perceptual training was evaluated using two separate tests with native English listeners. First, a direct comparison of the pretest and post-test tokens showed significant improvement in the perceived rating of /r/ and /l/ productions as a consequence of perceptual learning. Second, the post-test productions were more accurately identified by English listeners than the pretest productions in a two-alternative minimal-pair identification procedure. These results indicate that the knowledge gained during perceptual learning of /r/ and /l/ transferred to the production domain, and thus provides novel information regarding the relationship between speech perception and production.

Citations

• Effects of discrimination training on the perception of /r-l/ by Japanese adults learning English
• Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. III. Long-term retention of new phonetic categories
• Auditory perception by normal Japanese adults of the sounds “L” and “R”
• Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. II: The role of phonetic environment and talker variability in learning new perceptual categories
• Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: A first report
• Perception of the speech code.
• The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: evidence for the effect of equivalence classification

Cited by

• An investigation of current models of second language speech perception: The case of Japanese adults’ perception of English consonants
• Perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers [wikipedia]