Learning a novel phonological contrast depends on interactions between individual differences and training paradigm design

Abstract

Studies evaluating phonological contrast learning typically investigate either the predictiveness of specific pretraining aptitude measures or the efficacy of different instructional paradigms. However, little research considers how these factors interact-whether different students learn better from different types of instruction-and what the psychological basis for any interaction might be. The present study demonstrates that successfully learning a foreign-language phonological contrast for pitch depends on an interaction between individual differences in perceptual abilities and the design of the training paradigm. Training from stimuli with high acoustic-phonetic variability is generally thought to improve learning; however, we found high-variability training enhanced learning only for individuals with strong perceptual abilities. Learners with weaker perceptual abilities were actually impaired by high-variability training relative to a low-variability condition. A second experiment assessing variations on the high-variability training design determined that the property of this learning environment most detrimental to perceptually weak learners is the amount of trialby-trial variability. Learners' perceptual limitations can thus override the benefits of high-variability training where trial-by-trial variability in other irrelevant acoustic-phonetic features obfuscates access to the target feature. These results demonstrate the importance of considering individual differences in pretraining aptitudes when evaluating the efficacy of any speech training paradigm.

Adaptation to novel foreign-accented speech and retention of benefit following training: Influence of aging and hearing loss

“…While some of these characteristics may be controlled in the experimental paradigm, they all likely influence the individual's ability to take advantage of any given training paradigm. Perrachione et al (2011) examined the benefit of including high variability training stimuli in a training paradigm designed to teach a novel phonological contrast. They found that listeners who had a high aptitude for learning phonological contrasts (assessed prior to training) benefitted from training stimuli with high variability, whereas low aptitude listeners were negatively impacted by high stimulus variability, and benefitted more from training paradigms where stimuli were blocked by talker.…”

The effect of phonetic production training with visual feedback on the perception and production of foreign speech sounds

“…L2 perception training studies usually aim to improve the perception of "difficult" L2 contrasts, i.e., ones that assimilate to one L1 category (SC or CG, according to Best's PAM, 1995) (e.g., for consonants: Bradlow et al, 1997;Lively et al, 1993;Lopez-Soto and Kewley-Port, 2009;for vowels: Wong, 2013; for tone contrasts: Perrachione et al, 2011). The training procedures have typically involved one or more perception tasks (for example, discrimination and/or identification) where, for example, minimal pairs of words, pseudo words or segments are trained and tested (Bradlow et al, 1997;Lopez-Soto and Kewley-Port, 2009).…”

The interface between research on individual difference variables and teaching practice: The case of cognitive factors and personality

“…Similarly to Ranta (2008) and Gregersen and MacIntyre (2014), Li suggests that explicit instruction coupled with metalinguistic explanation is more appropriate for beginners, especially those with poor analytic ability, whereas more advanced learners, who are likely to depend more on WM capacity, may benefit from memory strategies which can aid them in processing and retrieving new information as well as reconceptualizing old information. Some work on ATI has been done as well in the case of pronunciation, a good example being the research project by Perrachione, Lee, Ha, and Wong (2011), who explored the interaction between learners' perceptual ability and training of non-native phonological contrasts in an input-variation study. The general conclusion was that different kinds of input, that is such characterized by high as opposed to low variability, can have a differential effect on learners manifesting different levels of phonological aptitude.…”