Discrimination of American vowels in disyllables presented in speech babble by Spanish late‐learners of American English.

Abstract

A previous study examined speeded discrimination of American English (AE) vowels in quiet by Spanish (SP) late L2 learners and AE controls. Results revealed differences between groups in accuracy on non‐native contrasts predictable from L1 phonological differences, but no significant differences between groups in response latency. In the present study, SP and AE listeners discriminated vowel contrasts in disyllables (Vpa) presented in non‐ideal listening contexts. The disyllabic stimuli were presented as four control contrasts (four non‐adjacent height contrasts) and eight experimental contrasts: four with spectral + duration differences (short‐long adjacent height contrasts) and four with spectral differences only (two front‐back contrasts and two height contrasts between short vowels). Both vowel contrasts and noise levels (speech babble presented at signal‐to‐noise ratio 0, 6, 12) were varied randomly within trials. Results indicated that SP listeners performed more poorly than native AE control subjec...