“…Previous research on L2 acquisition has shown that individual differences in perceptual abilities (Perrachione, Lee, Ha, & Wong, 2011), in empathy levels (Hu et al, 2013), in sensori-motor control (Simmonds, Wise, Dhanjal, & Leech, 2011), in motivation (Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, & Schils, 1997) and in the compactness (i.e., inverse of variability) of native phonetic production (Kartushina & Frauenfelder, 2013, 2014Kartushina, Hervais-Adelman, Frauenfelder, & Golestani, 2015) can help explain individual differences in the acquisition of L2 sounds. Some recent studies on the effects of the L2 on L1 production have also shown that the amount of change in L1 varies greatly across speakers (e.g., nativelike production in both the L1 and L2 for some L2 learners (e.g., De Leeuw, Mennen, & Scobbie, 2012;Major, 1992).…”