Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: A replication and extension

Abstract

Monolingual native speakers of Japanese were trained to identify English /r/ and /l/ using a modified version of Logan, Lively, and Pisoni’s [J. S. Logan etal., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 874–886 (1991)] high variability training procedure. Both the talker’s voice and the phonetic environment were varied during training. Subjects improved in their ability to identify /r/ and /l/ from the pre-test to the post-test and during training. Generalization accuracy depended on the voice of the talker producing the /r/–/l/ contrasts: Subjects were significantly more accurate when words were produced by a familiar talker than when they were produced by an unfamiliar talker. Three months after the conclusion of training, subjects were given the post-test and the tests of generalization again. Surprisingly, accuracy decreased only slightly on each test, even though no training or exposure to /r/ and /l/ occurred during the 3-month interval. These results demonstrate that the high variability training paradigm is effective in modifying nonnative listeners’ phonetic perception and that these changes are extremely robust over time. [Work supported by ATR.]