Neural activation during the discrimination of native and non-native speech contrasts by American and Japanese adults

Abstract

Language experience influences speech perception in adults. Adult speakers have been shown to experience difficulty when discriminating non-native consonants that are not phonemic in the native phonetic repertoire. The present study examined behavioral and neural differences in the processes underlying the perception of native and non-native speech sounds. American-English and Japanese native-speaking adults participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. The study focused on three consonants: the American English /r–l/ consonants and Japanese /r/. The investigation focused on neural correlates of both Kuhl’s perceptual magnet effect (PME) and the boundary effects typical of categorical perception (CP). Subjects performed in a behavioral task in which they identified provided goodness ratings, and discriminated stimuli varying in formants 2 and 3. Results will be discussed in relation to cortical activation patterns related to the PME and CP boundary effect for native and foreign language contrasts, and the effects of language experience on brain organization. [This work was supported by NIH grant (HD37954) and Talaris Institute.]