Does native language temporal experience transfer to audio-visual synchrony perception?

Abstract

The temporal alignment of what we hear and see is fundamental for the cognitive organization of information from our environment. Research indicates that a perceiver's experience influences sensitivity to audio-visual (AV) synchrony. We theorize that experience that enhances sensitivity to speech sound distinctions in the temporal domain would enhance sensitivity in AV synchrony perception. With this basis, a perceiver whose native language (L1) involves duration-based phonemic distinctions would be expected to be more sensitive to AV synchrony in speech than for an L1 which has less use of temporal cues. In the current study, simultaneity judgment data for the syllable /ba/ were collected with 23 steps of AV alignments: from audio preceding the video (audio-lead) to the audio and video being physically aligned (synchronous) to video preceding the audio (video-lead). Two groups of participants differing in L1 experience with phonemic duration were included: native speakers of Norwegian (binary phonemic quantity distinction) and English (no phonemic quantity distinction). Preliminary results based on measures the audio-lead threshold (ALT) support the hypothesis that native language experience may influence broad mechanisms of timing, such as those moderating AV synchrony perception. Findings contribute to understanding the underpinnings of experience and AV synchrony perception.