Bilingualism affects audiovisual phoneme identification.

Sabine Burfin,Christophe Savariaux,Elisa Ruiz Tada,Olivier Pascalis,Sonia Kandel,Albert Costa

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01179

Abstract

We all go through a process of perceptual narrowing for phoneme identification. As we become experts in the languages we hear in our environment we lose the ability to identify phonemes that do not exist in our native phonological inventory. This research examined how linguistic experience—i.e., the exposure to a double phonological code during childhood—affects the visual processes involved in non-native phoneme identification in audiovisual speech perception. We conducted a phoneme identification experiment with bilingual and monolingual adult participants. It was an ABX task involving a Bengali dental-retroflex contrast that does not exist in any of the participants' languages. The phonemes were presented in audiovisual (AV) and audio-only (A) conditions. The results revealed that in the audio-only condition monolinguals and bilinguals had difficulties in discriminating the retroflex non-native phoneme. They were phonologically “deaf” and assimilated it to the dental phoneme that exists in their native languages. In the audiovisual presentation instead, both groups could overcome the phonological deafness for the retroflex non-native phoneme and identify both Bengali phonemes. However, monolinguals were more accurate and responded quicker than bilinguals. This suggests that bilinguals do not use the same processes as monolinguals to decode visual speech.

Highlights

Having a conversation in a non-native language is a difficult task when our proficiency with that language is limited
This research examined how linguistic experience—i.e., the exposure to a double phonological code during childhood—affects the visual processes involved in non-native phoneme identification in audiovisual speech perception
Do bilinguals process visual information for phonemes that do not exist in their phonological inventory as monolinguals do? The present study examined whether linguistic experience during early childhood affects the visual processes involved in non-native phoneme identification in audiovisual speech

Summary

Introduction

Having a conversation in a non-native language is a difficult task when our proficiency with that language is limited. Native French speakers have difficulties identifying it and often confuse the /θ/-/f/ or /θ/-/s/ contrasts like in the words /θIn/ (thin), /fIn/ (fin), and /sIn/ (sin). When they hear thin, they assimilate /θ/ to the closest phoneme they know, in this case to /f/ or /s/ (Best, 1995). This example illustrates the phenomenon of “phonological deafness” (Polivanov, 1931). This research examined how linguistic experience—i.e., the exposure to a double phonological code during childhood—affects the visual processes involved in non-native phoneme identification

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