Perceptual learning, talker specificity, and sound change

Lacey Wade,Meredith Tamminga,Robert Wilder,Wei Lai

doi:10.2218/pihph.5.2020.4439

Abstract

Perceptual learning is when listeners hear novel speech input and shift their subsequent perceptual behavior. In this paper we consider the relationship between sound change and perceptual learning. We spell out the connections we see between perceptual learning and different approaches to sound change and explain how a deeper empirical understanding of the properties of perceptual learning might benefit sound change models. We propose that questions about when listeners generalize their perceptual learning to new talkers might be of of particular interest to theories of sound change. We review the relevant literature, noting that studies of perceptual learning generalization across talkers of the same gender are lacking. Finally, we present new experimental data aimed at filling that gap by comparing cross-talker generalization of fricative boundary perceptual learning in same-gender and different-gender pairs. We find that listeners are much more likely to generalize what they have learned across same-gender pairs, even when the different-gender pairs have more similar fricatives. We discuss implications for sound change.

Highlights

It is widely accepted that in speech perception, listeners have a relatively high degree of perceptual lexibility (Repp & Liberman 1984): they can use a range of contextual cues to dynamically adjust their interpretation of the phonetic input they encounter
In this paper we expand on the connection between perceptual learning and sound change, with special attention given to the question of how listeners generalize across different talkers
Because the goal of the perceptual learning paradigm is to induce listeners to shift their perceptual boundary between phonemes, a natural way to present the results is by plotting the categorization boundary on the /s/-/f/ test continuum between pre-test and post-test

Summary

Introduction

It is widely accepted that in speech perception, listeners have a relatively high degree of perceptual lexibility (Repp & Liberman 1984): they can use a range of contextual cues to dynamically adjust their interpretation of the phonetic input they encounter. In order for any perceptual adjustment to play a role in longer-term change, listeners must sometimes allow those adjustments to in luence their future behavior, in both perception (our focus here) and production. In addition to understanding the mechanisms of momentary perceptual lexibility, theorists of sound change need to understand the learning and behavioral mechanisms by which listeners update their expectations about future input. Such mechanisms are targeted by a collection of experimental paradigms eliciting perceptual learning (for an overview, see Samuel & Kraljic 2009). In this paper we expand on the connection between perceptual learning and sound change, with special attention given to the question of how listeners generalize across different talkers

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