Effects of audiovisual auditory and articulatory training on second‐language (L2) vowel category learning.

Abstract

Cross‐language speech perception research has documented learners’ difficulties in using and accessing L2 durational and spectral information. This study investigated the short‐term effects of two types of audiovisual high‐variability phonetic training—auditory versus articulatory training—on the perception of the 11 English RP monophthongal vowels. Bilingual Catalan/Spanish learners of English (N=20 in each training condition) and one control group (N=20) were tested before and after training. Perceptual gains were assessed through a four‐choice categorization task with natural CVC words, a forced‐choice categorization task based on four synthesized /hVd/ continua (/i:/‐/ɪ/, /æ/‐/ʌ/, /ʌ/‐/ɑ:/ and /u:/‐/U/), and an AX discrimination task including 16 contrasting pairs. Significant perceptual accuracy gains were obtained in both auditory and audiovisual conditions. Pre‐ and postcategorization of synthesized vowels suggests that vowel perception improved, and that both training modalities had a similar positive effect on the learners’ use of spectral and duration information in vowel categorization. These results are further discussed in terms of input effects on vowel category learning and the reweighting of acoustic cues through phonetic training.