Learning novel phonetic categories in perception and production.

Abstract

Much is known about perceptual category formation in both first and second languages. For example, researchers have demonstrated that in the laboratory listeners are able to form novel perceptual categories after a short period of exposure [e.g., Hayes (2003); Maye & Gerken (2000); Maye & Gerken (2001)]. However, little research has examined how perceptual category formation proceeds in production or how training in one modality affects learning in the other modality. This study systematically manipulates training modality while testing participants in both perception and production. Participants were trained on a novel phonetic category contrast using an implicit learning paradigm [Maye & Gerken (2000); Maye & Gerken (2001)]. Across participants, training either consisted of perception‐only, in which participants did not explicitly produce tokens, or perception+production, in which participants were instructed to explicitly repeat tokens. Participants were tested on their ability to perceive and produce the new contrast before and after training. Perception results demonstrate that the perception‐only training group learns to discriminate the trained contrast. The perception+production training group discriminates less well, suggesting that production training can disrupt perceptual learning. Results of this study will increase understanding of how category formation occurs in both modalities and give insight into the relationship between perception and production.