Abstract
Purpose This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children's English /r/-/l/ perception to a native-like level. Method Ten sessions of audiovisual English /r/-/l/ identification training were conducted for Japanese-speaking adults and children. Assessments were made of age effects on the increase in identification accuracy in three testing conditions (audiovisual, visual only, and audio only) and auditory discrimination of the primary acoustic cue (F3 frequency). Results The results showed that both adults and children increased their identification accuracy in the audiovisual condition more than in the single-modality conditions (visual only and audio only). Their improvement in the visual-only condition was larger than that in the audio-only condition. Japanese-speaking adults and children improved their primary acoustic cue (F3) sensitivity to a similar extent. In addition, their identification improvement in the audiovisual condition was positively correlated with those in the audio-only and visual-only conditions. The improvement in the audio-only condition was also positively correlated with that in the visual-only condition and with primary acoustic cue sensitivity. Conclusion It was unclear whether children had an advantage over adults in improving their identification accuracy, but both age groups improved their auditory and visual perception of the English /r/-/l/ contrast and showed additive effects in the multisensory (i.e., audiovisual) condition.
Highlights
This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children’s English /r/−/l/ perception to a native-like level
One of the main findings of this study is that both Japanese adults and children improved the accuracy of their visual and auditory identification of the English /r/ −/l/ contrasts over the 10 audiovisual training sessions
It was hypothesized that Japanese children would have advantages regarding improving their visual and auditory perception of English /r/ and /l/ through audiovisual training and that Japanese children would improve their identification accuracy in the audiovisual condition more than in the single-modality conditions, compared to adults
Summary
This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children’s English /r/−/l/ perception to a native-like level. Hardison (2003) demonstrated that audiovisual training led to significantly greater improvement for adult Japanese speakers’ English /r/−/l/ identification accuracy than did auditory training, for the word-initial /r/−/l/ contrasts Their training increased identification accuracy in all testing conditions (i.e., audiovisual, visual only, and audio only) to similar extents. These results suggest that the present audiovisual training method improves Japanese speakers’ identification of the English /r/−/l/ contrast more than do previous types of auditory training. The English speakers in the Hardison study produced this visual /r/−/l/ distinction more saliently than did the English speakers used by Hazan et al the speaker variability effect was considered in this study
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