Testing the importance of talker variability in non-native speech contrast training

Magnuson, James S.; Yamada, Reiko; Tohkura, Yoh’ichi; Bradlow, Ann R.

doi:10.1121/1.412450

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…It is noteworthy that in the literature on adult second language learning, high variability training approaches have been widely found to be most effective in helping adults acquire non-native phonetic categories and generalize to stimuli outside the training set (see Bradlow, 2008 for a review). Yet in some cases, training with an appropriate individual talker is as effective as multiple-talker training in promoting stimulus-general learning and allows transfer to a novel talker (Magnuson, Yamada, Tohkura, & Bradlow, 1995). The notion of exemplar-type generalization is consistent with such data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning a talker or learning an accent: Acoustic similarity constrains generalization of foreign accent adaptation to new talkers

Xie

Myers

2017

Journal of Memory and Language

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Past research has revealed that native listeners use top-down information to adjust the mapping from speech sounds to phonetic categories. Such phonetic adjustments help listeners adapt to foreign-accented speech. However, the mechanism by which talker-specific adaptation generalizes to other talkers is poorly understood. Here we asked what conditions induce crosstalker generalization in talker accent adaptation. Native-English listeners were exposed to Mandarin-accented words, produced by a single talker or multiple talkers. Following exposure, adaptation to the accent was tested by recognition of novel words in a task that assesses online lexical access. Crucially, test words were novel words and were produced by a novel Mandarin-accented talker. Results indicated that regardless of exposure condition (single or multiple talker exposure), generalization was greatest when the talkers were acoustically similar to one another, suggesting that listeners were not developing an accent-wide schema for Mandarin talkers, but rather attuning to the specific acoustic-phonetic properties of the talkers. Implications for general mechanisms of talker generalization in speech adaptation are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning a talker or learning an accent: Acoustic similarity constrains generalization of foreign accent adaptation to new talkers

Xie

Myers

2017

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…The key elements of this training approach that are apparently responsible for the robust learning are the stimuli (i.e., a wide range ofIrl and III exemplars produced by multiple talkers) and the task (i.e., a minimal-pair identification task that encourages classification into broad phonetic categories rather than a discrimination task that encourages perception of finegrained within-category differences). While the unique impact of the high-variability approach to perceptual learning has been established experimentally (Lively et al, 1993;Magnuson et al, 1995), it is still an open question whether the high-variability approach is more effective in promoting long-term improvement in production than other, "low-variability" approaches. The major strength of the high-variability training approach for perceptual learning is that it produces highly generalized learning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past decade, several important advances have been made toward establishing effective laboratory training procedures for modifying the identification of difficult non-native phonetic categories (for recent reviews, see Akahane-Yamada, 1996;Jamieson, 1995;Logan & Pruitt, 1995;Pisoni & Lively, 1995;Pisoni, Lively,& Logan, 1994). In addition to the benefits that such speech sound training procedures present for second-language learners, this general research agenda also provides important new information regarding the extent to which the adult phonetic system is plastic and thus capable of undergoing linguistically meaningful modifications.…”

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confidence: 99%

Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/and /l/: Long-term retention of learning in perception and production

Bradlow¹,

Akahane‐Yamada

Pisoni

et al. 1999

Perception & Psychophysics

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336

264

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Previous work from our laboratories has shown that monolingual Japanese adults who were given intensive high-variability perceptual training improved in both perception and production of English Iri-ill minimal pairs. In this study, we extended those findings by investigating the long-term retention of learning in both perception and production of this difficult non-native contrast. Results showed that 3 months after completion of the perceptual training procedure, the Japanese trainees maintained their improved levels of performance on the perceptual identification task. Furthermore, perceptual evaluations by native American English listeners of the Japanese trainees' pretest, posttest, and 3-month follow-up speech productions showed that the trainees retained their long-term improvements in the general quality, identifiability, and overall intelligibility of their English 1r1-11/ word productions. Taken together, the results provide further support for the efficacy of high-variability laboratory speech sound training procedures, and suggest an optimistic outlook for the application of such procedures for a wide range of "special populations."Over the past decade, several important advances have been made toward establishing effective laboratory training procedures for modifying the identification of difficult non-native phonetic categories (for recent reviews, see

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“…It is unlikely, however, that the use of a single talker lead the learner to assume that all aspects of the talker’s speech were general to the language at hand. Previous studies have shown that generalization to novel talkers increases with the number of talkers heard during training (Magnuson, et al, 1995). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While no studies have focused on categorical phonological patterns like vowel harmony, research has tested learners’ ability to generalize to novel talkers when learning a novel phonetic contrast, such as the difference between /l/ and /r/ that is present in English but not Japanese. Japanese learners of English were able to extend the novel phonetic category to novel talkers only when participants were trained on stimuli that included multiple talkers (Lively, Pisoni, & Logan, 1992; Logan, et al, 1991; Magnuson et al, 1995). This suggests that phonetic contrasts may be formed via talker-specific representations.…”

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confidence: 99%

Generalization to unfamiliar talkers in artificial language learning

Finley

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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While there is evidence that talker-specific details are encoded in the phonetics of the lexicon (Kraljic, Samuel, & Brennan, 2008; Logan, Lively, & Pisoni, 1991) and in sentence processing (Nygaard & Pisoni, 1998), it is unclear whether categorical linguistic patterns are also represented in terms of talker-specific details. The present study provides evidence that adult learners form talker-independent representations for productive linguistic patterns. Participants were able to generalize a novel linguistic pattern to unfamiliar talkers. Learners were exposed to spoken words that conformed to a pattern in which vowels of a word agreed in place of articulation, referred to as vowel harmony. All items were presented in the voice of one single talker. Participants were tested on items that included both the familiar talker and an unfamiliar talker. Participants generalized the pattern to novel talkers when the talkers spoke with a familiar accent (Experiment 1), as well as with an unfamiliar accent (Experiment 2). Learners showed a small advantage for talker familiarity when the words were familiar, but not when the words were novel. These results are consistent with a theory of language processing in which the lexicon stores fine-grained, talker specific phonetic details, but productive linguistic processes are subject to abstract, talker-independent representations.

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Testing the importance of talker variability in non-native speech contrast training

Abstract: In contrast to Japanese adults trained with stimuli produced by five talkers,

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Learning a talker or learning an accent: Acoustic similarity constrains generalization of foreign accent adaptation to new talkers

Learning a talker or learning an accent: Acoustic similarity constrains generalization of foreign accent adaptation to new talkers

Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/and /l/: Long-term retention of learning in perception and production

Generalization to unfamiliar talkers in artificial language learning

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