Native Language Experience Research Articles

Effects of Listener Age and Native Language Experience on Recognition of Accented and Unaccented English Words.

Purpose Older native speakers of English have difficulty in understanding Spanish-accented English compared to younger native English speakers. However, it is unclear if this age effect would be observed among native speakers of Spanish. The current study investigates the effects of age and native language experience with Spanish on the ability to recognize words spoken in English by Spanish-accented and unaccented talkers. Method English monosyllabic words, recorded by native speakers of English and Spanish, were presented to 4 groups of listeners with normal hearing: younger native Spanish listeners ( n = 15), older native Spanish listeners ( n = 16), younger native English listeners ( n = 15), and older native English listeners ( n = 15). Speech recognition accuracy was assessed for the unaccented and accented words in both quiet and noise. Results In all conditions, the native English listeners performed better than the native Spanish listeners. More specifically, the native speakers of Spanish consistently recognized accented English less accurately than the native speakers of English, demonstrating no advantage of shared native language experience between nonnative listeners and accented talkers. Older listeners in the native Spanish language group also performed less accurately than their younger counterparts, for English words spoken by both unaccented and accented talkers. Finally, whereas listeners who were native speakers of English showed marked declines in recognition of Spanish-accented English relative to unaccented English, listeners who were native speakers of Spanish (both younger and older) showed less decline. Conclusions The general pattern of results suggests that both native language experience in a language other than English and age limit the ability to recognize Spanish-accented English. The implication of the overall findings is that older nonnative listeners will have considerable difficulty in understanding English, regardless of the talker's accent, in both clinical and everyday listening situations.

Effects of listener age and native language on perception of accented and unaccented sentences.

Degradations to auditory input have deleterious effects on speech recognition performance, especially by older listeners. Alterations to timing information in speech, such as occurs in rapid or foreign-accented speech, can be particularly difficult for older people to resolve. It is currently unclear how prior language experience modulates performance with temporally altered sentence-length speech utterances. The principal hypothesis is that prior experience with a foreign language affords an advantage for recognition of accented English when the talker and listener share the same native language, which may minimize age-related differences in performance with temporally altered speech. A secondary hypothesis is that native language experience with a syllable-timed language (Spanish) is advantageous for recognizing rapid English speech. Native speakers of English and Spanish completed speech recognition tasks with both accented and unaccented English sentences presented in various degrees of time compression (TC). Native English listeners showed higher or equivalent recognition of accented and unaccented English speech compared to native Spanish listeners in all TC conditions. Additionally, significant effects of aging were seen for native Spanish listeners on all tasks. Overall, the results did not support the hypotheses for a benefit of shared language experience for non-native speakers of English, particularly older native Spanish listeners.

English phoneme recognition of vocoded speech by adult Mandarin-speaking English-learners

The present study examined the joint influence of listeners’ language experience and the degree of spectral degradation of speech signals on English phoneme recognition of L2 listeners. The participants included 27 native English-speaking listeners and 43 native Mandarin-speaking listeners who used English as an L2. The L2 participants varied in chronological age, age of English learning, length of residency in the United States, and the amount of daily-based English usage. The speech stimuli included 12 English vowels embedded in a /hVd/ context produced by four speakers and 20 English consonants embedded in a /Ca/ context produced by two speakers. The speech stimuli were processed using 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, and 12-channel noise vocoders. The processed and original stimuli were presented to the listeners for identification in a random order. The results showed that spectral degradation had more adverse effects on the L2 listeners but the L2 disadvantage became more evident as the number of frequency increased. The L2 listeners showed different confusion patterns from the L1 listeners, which was affected by the L2 listeners’ native language experience. Furthermore, the regression analysis revealed that the L2 listener’s length of residency in the United States was a significant predictor for their phoneme recognition outcomes.

Does native language temporal experience transfer to audio-visual synchrony perception?

The temporal alignment of what we hear and see is fundamental for the cognitive organization of information from our environment. Research indicates that a perceiver's experience influences sensitivity to audio-visual (AV) synchrony. We theorize that experience that enhances sensitivity to speech sound distinctions in the temporal domain would enhance sensitivity in AV synchrony perception. With this basis, a perceiver whose native language (L1) involves duration-based phonemic distinctions would be expected to be more sensitive to AV synchrony in speech than for an L1 which has less use of temporal cues. In the current study, simultaneity judgment data for the syllable /ba/ were collected with 23 steps of AV alignments: from audio preceding the video (audio-lead) to the audio and video being physically aligned (synchronous) to video preceding the audio (video-lead). Two groups of participants differing in L1 experience with phonemic duration were included: native speakers of Norwegian (binary phonemic quantity distinction) and English (no phonemic quantity distinction). Preliminary results based on measures the audio-lead threshold (ALT) support the hypothesis that native language experience may influence broad mechanisms of timing, such as those moderating AV synchrony perception. Findings contribute to understanding the underpinnings of experience and AV synchrony perception.

Reanalyzing language expectations: Native language knowledge modulates the sensitivity to intervening cues during anticipatory processing.

We investigated how native language experience shapes anticipatory language processing. Two groups of bilinguals (either Spanish or Basque natives) performed a word matching task (WordMT) and a picture matching task (PictureMT). They indicated whether the stimuli they visually perceived matched with the noun they heard. Spanish noun endings were either diagnostic of the gender (transparent) or ambiguous (opaque). ERPs were time-locked to an intervening gender-marked determiner preceding the predicted noun. The determiner always gender agreed with the following noun but could also introduce a mismatching noun, so that it was not fully task diagnostic. Evoked brain activity time-locked to the determiner was considered as reflecting updating/reanalysis of the task-relevant preactivated representation. We focused on the timing of this effect by estimating the comparison between a gender-congruent and a gender-incongruent determiner. In the WordMT, both groups showed a late N400 effect. Crucially, only Basque natives displayed an earlier P200 effect for determiners preceding transparent nouns. In the PictureMT, both groups showed an early P200 effect for determiners preceding opaque nouns. The determiners of transparent nouns triggered a negative effect at ∼430 ms in Spanish natives, but at ∼550 ms in Basque natives. This pattern of results supports a "retracing hypothesis" according to which the neurocognitive system navigates through the intermediate (sublexical and lexical) linguistic representations available from previous processing to evaluate the need of an update in the linguistic expectation concerning a target lexical item.

The Duration of Auditory Sensory Memory for Vowel Processing: Neurophysiological and Behavioral Measures.

Speech perception behavioral research suggests that rates of sensory memory decay are dependent on stimulus properties at more than one level (e.g., acoustic level, phonemic level). The neurophysiology of sensory memory decay rate has rarely been examined in the context of speech processing. In a lexical tone study, we showed that long-term memory representation of lexical tone slows the decay rate of sensory memory for these tones. Here, we tested the hypothesis that long-term memory representation of vowels slows the rate of auditory sensory memory decay in a similar way to that of lexical tone. Event-related potential (ERP) responses were recorded to Mandarin non-words contrasting the vowels /i/ vs. /u/ and /y/ vs. /u/ from first-language (L1) Mandarin and L1 American English participants under short and long interstimulus interval (ISI) conditions (short ISI: an average of 575 ms, long ISI: an average of 2675 ms). Results revealed poorer discrimination of the vowel contrasts for English listeners than Mandarin listeners, but with different patterns for behavioral perception and neural discrimination. As predicted, English listeners showed the poorest discrimination and identification for the vowel contrast /y/ vs. /u/, and poorer performance in the long ISI condition. In contrast to Yu et al. (2017), however, we found no effect of ISI reflected in the neural responses, specifically the mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a and late negativity ERP amplitudes. We did see a language group effect, with Mandarin listeners generally showing larger MMN and English listeners showing larger P3a. The behavioral results revealed that native language experience plays a role in echoic sensory memory trace maintenance, but the failure to find an effect of ISI on the ERP results suggests that vowel and lexical tone memory traces decay at different rates.Highlights:We examined the interaction between auditory sensory memory decay and language experience.We compared MMN, P3a, LN and behavioral responses in short vs. long interstimulus intervals.We found that different from lexical tone contrast, MMN, P3a, and LN changes to vowel contrasts are not influenced by lengthening the ISI to 2.6 s.We also found that the English listeners discriminated the non-native vowel contrast with lower accuracy under the long ISI condition.

Language Experience with a Native-Language Phoneme Sequence Modulates the Effects of Attention on Cortical Sensory Processing.

Auditory evoked potentials (AEP) reflect spectro-temporal feature changes within the spoken word and are sufficiently reliable to probe deficits in auditory processing. The current research assessed whether attentional modulation would alter the morphology of these AEPs and whether native-language experience with phoneme sequences would influence the effects of attention. Native-English and native-Polish adults listened to nonsense word pairs that contained the phoneme sequence onsets /st/, /sət/, /pət/ that occur in both the Polish and English languages and the phoneme sequence onset /pt/ that occurs in the Polish language, but not the English language. Participants listened to word pairs within two experimental conditions designed to modulate attention. In one condition, participants listened to word pairs and performed a behavioral task to the second word in the pairs (“with task”) and in the alternate condition participants listened to word pairs without performing a task (“without task”). Conditions were counterbalanced so that half the English and Polish subjects performed the “without task” condition as the first testing session and the “with task” condition as the second testing session. The remaining English and Polish subjects performed the tasks in the reverse order. Two or more months separated the testing sessions. Task conditions did not modulate the morphology of the AEP. Attention, however, modulated the AEP by producing a negative shift in the overall waveform. This effect of attention was modulated by experience with a native-language phoneme sequence. Thus, only Polish listeners showed an effect of attention to the native language /pt/ onset when the behavioral task occurred as the second testing session for which attention demands were reduced. This effect began at 400 ms and suggests a mechanism at intermediate stages within auditory cortex that facilitates recognition of the native language for comprehension.

Phonetic Encoding of Coda Voicing Contrast under Different Focus Conditions in L1 vs. L2 English.

This study investigated how coda voicing contrast in English would be phonetically encoded in the temporal vs. spectral dimension of the preceding vowel (in vowel duration vs. F1/F2) by Korean L2 speakers of English, and how their L2 phonetic encoding pattern would be compared to that of native English speakers. Crucially, these questions were explored by taking into account the phonetics-prosody interface, testing effects of prominence by comparing target segments in three focus conditions (phonological focus, lexical focus, and no focus). Results showed that Korean speakers utilized the temporal dimension (vowel duration) to encode coda voicing contrast, but failed to use the spectral dimension (F1/F2), reflecting their native language experience—i.e., with a more sparsely populated vowel space in Korean, they are less sensitive to small changes in the spectral dimension, and hence fine-grained spectral cues in English are not readily accessible. Results also showed that along the temporal dimension, both the L1 and L2 speakers hyperarticulated coda voicing contrast under prominence (when phonologically or lexically focused), but hypoarticulated it in the non-prominent condition. This indicates that low-level phonetic realization and high-order information structure interact in a communicatively efficient way, regardless of the speakers’ native language background. The Korean speakers, however, used the temporal phonetic space differently from the way the native speakers did, especially showing less reduction in the no focus condition. This was also attributable to their native language experience—i.e., the Korean speakers’ use of temporal dimension is constrained in a way that is not detrimental to the preservation of coda voicing contrast, given that they failed to add additional cues along the spectral dimension. The results imply that the L2 phonetic system can be more fully illuminated through an investigation of the phonetics-prosody interface in connection with the L2 speakers’ native language experience.

Language dominance shapes non-linguistic rhythmic grouping in bilinguals

To what degree non-linguistic auditory rhythm perception is governed by universal biases (e.g., Iambic-Trochaic Law; Hayes, 1995) or shaped by native language experience is debated. It has been proposed that rhythmic regularities in spoken language, such as phrasal prosody affect the grouping abilities of monolinguals (e.g., Iversen, Patel, & Ohgushi, 2008). Here, we assessed the non-linguistic tone grouping biases of Spanish monolinguals, and three groups of Basque-Spanish bilinguals with different levels of Basque experience. It is usually assumed in the literature that Basque and Spanish have different phrasal prosodies and even linguistic rhythms. To confirm this, first, we quantified Basque and Spanish phrasal prosody (Experiment 1a) and duration patterns used in the classification of languages into rhythm classes (Experiment 1b). The acoustic measurements revealed that regularities in phrasal prosody systematically differ across Basque and Spanish; by contrast, the rhythms of the two languages are only minimally dissimilar. In Experiment 2, participants’ non-linguistic rhythm preferences were assessed in response to non-linguistic tones alternating in either intensity (Intensity condition) or in duration (Duration condition). In the Intensity condition, all groups showed a trochaic grouping bias, as predicted by the Iambic-Trochaic Law. In the Duration Condition the Spanish monolingual and the most Basque-dominant bilingual group exhibited opposite grouping preferences in line with the phrasal prosodies of their native/dominant languages, trochaic in Basque, iambic in Spanish. The two other bilingual groups showed no significant biases, however. Overall, results indicate that duration-based grouping mechanisms are biased toward the phrasal prosody of the native and dominant language; also, the presence of an L2 in the environment interacts with the auditory biases.

A Neurophysiological Investigation of Non-native Phoneme Perception by Dutch and German Listeners.

The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) response has often been used to measure memory traces for phonological representations and to show effects of long-term native language (L1) experience on neural organization. We know little about whether phonological representations of non-native (L2) phonemes are modulated by experience with distinct non-native accents. We used MMN to examine effects of experience with L2-accented speech on auditory brain responses. Specifically, we tested whether it is long-term experience with language-specific L2 pronunciations or instead acoustic similarity between L2 speech sounds that modulates non-native phoneme perception. We registered MMN responses of Dutch and German proficient L2 speakers of English to the English interdental fricative /𝜃/ and compared it to its non-native pronunciations /s/ (typical pronunciation of /𝜃/ for German speakers) and /t/ (typical pronunciation of /𝜃/ for Dutch speakers). Dutch and German listeners heard the English pseudoword thond and its pronunciation deviants sond and tond. We computed the identity Mismatch Negativity (iMMN) by analyzing the difference in ERPs when the deviants were the frequent vs. the infrequent stimulus for the respective group of L2 listeners. For both groups, tond and sond elicited mismatch effects of comparable size. Overall, the results suggest that experience with deviant pronunciations of L2 speech sounds in foreign-accented speech does not alter auditory memory traces. Instead, non-native phoneme perception seems to be modulated by acoustic similarity between speech sounds rather than by experience with typical L2 pronunciation patterns.

The perception of speech modulation cues in lexical tones is guided by early language-specific experience.

A number of studies showed that infants reorganize their perception of speech sounds according to their native language categories during their first year of life. Still, information is lacking about the contribution of basic auditory mechanisms to this process. This study aimed to evaluate when native language experience starts to noticeably affect the perceptual processing of basic acoustic cues [i.e., frequency-modulation (FM) and amplitude-modulation information] known to be crucial for speech perception in adults. The discrimination of a lexical-tone contrast (rising versus low) was assessed in 6- and 10-month-old infants learning either French or Mandarin using a visual habituation paradigm. The lexical tones were presented in two conditions designed to either keep intact or to severely degrade the FM and fine spectral cues needed to accurately perceive voice-pitch trajectory. A third condition was designed to assess the discrimination of the same voice-pitch trajectories using click trains containing only the FM cues related to the fundamental-frequency (F0) in French- and Mandarin-learning 10-month-old infants. Results showed that the younger infants of both language groups and the Mandarin-learning 10-month-olds discriminated the intact lexical-tone contrast while French-learning 10-month-olds failed. However, only the French 10-month-olds discriminated degraded lexical tones when FM, and thus voice-pitch cues were reduced. Moreover, Mandarin-learning 10-month-olds were found to discriminate the pitch trajectories as presented in click trains better than French infants. Altogether, these results reveal that the perceptual reorganization occurring during the first year of life for lexical tones is coupled with changes in the auditory ability to use speech modulation cues.

Effects of experience with L2 and music on rhythmic grouping by French listeners

Rhythm perception is assumed to be guided by a domain-general auditory principle, the Iambic/Trochaic Law, stating that sounds varying in intensity are grouped as strong-weak, and sounds varying in duration are grouped as weak-strong. Recently, Bhatara et al. (2013) showed that rhythmic grouping is influenced by native language experience, French listeners having weaker grouping preferences than German listeners. This study explores whether L2 knowledge and musical experience also affect rhythmic grouping. In a grouping task, French late learners of German listened to sequences of coarticulated syllables varying in either intensity or duration. Data on their language and musical experience were obtained by a questionnaire. Mixed-effect model comparisons showed influences of musical experience as well as L2 input quality and quantity on grouping preferences. These results imply that adult French listeners’ sensitivity to rhythm can be enhanced through L2 and musical experience.

Native language experience shapes neural basis of addressed and assembled phonologies

Previous studies have suggested differential engagement of addressed and assembled phonologies in reading Chinese and alphabetic languages (e.g., English) and the modulatory role of native language in learning to read a second language. However, it is not clear whether native language experience shapes the neural mechanisms of addressed and assembled phonologies. To address this question, we trained native Chinese and native English speakers to read the same artificial language (based on Korean Hangul) either through addressed (i.e., whole-word mapping) or assembled (i.e., grapheme-to-phoneme mapping) phonology. We found that, for both native Chinese and native English speakers, addressed phonology relied on the regions in the ventral pathway, whereas assembled phonology depended on the regions in the dorsal pathway. More importantly, we found that the neural mechanisms of addressed and assembled phonologies were shaped by native language experience. Specifically, one key region for addressed phonology (i.e., the left middle temporal gyrus) showed greater activation for addressed phonology in native Chinese speakers, while one key region for assembled phonology (i.e., the left supramarginal gyrus) showed more activation for assembled phonology in native English speakers. These results provide direct neuroimaging evidence for the effect of native language experience on the neural mechanisms of phonological access in a new language and support the assimilation–accommodation hypothesis.

AGE MATTERS, AND SO MAY RATERS

Research on the age of learning effect on second language learners’ foreign accents utilizes human judgments to determine speech production outcomes. Inferences drawn from analyses of these ratings are then used to inform theories. The present study focuses on rater differences in the age of learning effect research. Three groups of raters who differed in their native language background and language experience participated in the study: inexperienced native English speaker (NES) raters, experienced NES raters, and advanced nonnative English speaker (NNES) raters. All raters evaluated 64 speech samples taken from both NESs and NNESs who varied in their age of arrival in the second-language-speaking country. Results from the study showed that experienced NES raters were better than the other two rater groups at distinguishing NESs from NNESs. Although no rater group differences were found in scaling speakers’ foreign accents or in their interrater reliability, inexperienced NES raters were stricter in their ratings than both experienced NES raters and advanced NNES raters. Implications for research on age of learning effects are discussed.

Fast phonetic learning in very young infants: what it shows, and what it doesn't show.

Fast phonetic learning in very young infants: what it shows, and what it doesn't show.

Neuroanatomical profiles of deafness in the context of native language experience.

The study of congenitally deaf adult humans provides an opportunity to examine neuroanatomical plasticity resulting from altered sensory experience. However, attributing the source of the brain's structural variance in the deaf is complicated by the fact that deaf individuals also differ in their language experiences (e.g., sign vs spoken), which likely influence brain anatomy independently. Although the majority of deaf individuals in the United States are born to hearing parents and are exposed to English, not American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language, most studies on deafness have been conducted with deaf native users of ASL (deaf signers). This raises the question of whether observations made in deaf signers can be generalized. Using a factorial design, we compared gray (GMV) and white (WMV) matter volume in deaf and hearing native users of ASL, as well as deaf and hearing native users of English. Main effects analysis of sensory experience revealed less GMV in the deaf groups combined (compared with hearing groups combined) in early visual areas and less WMV in a left early auditory region. The interaction of sensory experience and language experience revealed that deaf native users of English had fewer areas of anatomical differences than did deaf native users of ASL (each compared with their hearing counterparts). For deaf users of ASL specifically, WMV differences resided in language areas such as the left superior temporal and inferior frontal regions. Our results demonstrate that cortical plasticity resulting from deafness depends on language experience and that findings from native signers cannot be generalized.

Learning two languages from birth shapes pre-attentive processing of vowel categories: Electrophysiological correlates of vowel discrimination in monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals

Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we measured pre-attentive processing involved in native vowel perception as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) in monolingual and simultaneous bilingual (SB) users of Canadian English and Canadian French in response to various pairings of four vowels: English /u/, French /u/, French /y/, and a control /y/. The monolingual listeners exhibited a discrimination pattern that was shaped by their native language experience. The SB listeners, on the other hand, exhibited a MMN pattern that was distinct from both monolingual listener groups, suggesting that the SB pre-attentive system is tuned to access sub-phonemic detail with respect to both input languages, including detail that is not readily accessed by either of their monolingual peers. Additionally, simultaneous bilinguals exhibited sensitivity to language context generated by the standard vowel in the MMN paradigm. The automatic access to fine phonetic detail may aid SB listeners to rapidly adjust their perception to the variable listening conditions that they frequently encounter.

Perceptual narrowing in the context of increased variation: Insights from bilingual infants

Human infants become native-language listeners through a process of perceptual narrowing. Monolingual infants are initially sensitive to a wide range of language-relevant contrasts. However, as they mature and gain native-language experience, their sensitivity to nonnative contrasts declines. Here, we consider the case of infants growing up bilingual as a window into how increased variation affects early perceptual development. These infants encounter different meaningful contrasts in each of their languages, and must also attend to contrasts that occur between their languages. Bilingual infants share many classic developmental patterns with monolinguals. However, they also show unique developmental patterns in the perception of native distinctions such as U-shaped trajectories and dose-response relationships, and show some enhanced sensitivity to nonnative distinctions. Analogous developmental patterns can be observed in individuals exposed to two nonlinguistic systems in domains such as music and face perception. Some preliminary evidence suggests that bilingual individuals might retain more sensitivity to nonnative contrasts, reaching a less narrow end state than monolinguals. Nevertheless, bilingual infants do become perceptually specialized native listeners to both of their languages, despite increased variation and differing patterns of perceptual development in comparison to monolinguals.

The effect of native-language experience on the sensory-obligatory components, the P1–N1–P2 and the T-complex

The influence of native-language experience on sensory-obligatory auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) was investigated in native-English and native-Polish listeners. AEPs were recorded to the first word in nonsense word pairs, while participants performed a syllable identification task to the second word in the pairs. Nonsense words contained phoneme sequence onsets (i.e., /pt/, /pət/, /st/ and /sət/) that occur in the Polish and English languages, with the exception that /pt/ at syllable onset is an illegal phonotactic form in English. P1–N1–P2 waveforms from fronto-central electrode sites were comparable in English and Polish listeners, even though, these same English participants were unable to distinguish the nonsense words having /pt/ and /pət/ onsets. The P1–N1–P2 complex indexed the temporal characteristics of the word stimuli in the same manner for both language groups. Taken together, these findings suggest that the fronto-central P1–N1–P2 complex reflects acoustic feature processing of speech and is not significantly influenced by exposure to the phoneme sequences of the native-language. In contrast, the T-complex from bilateral posterior temporal sites was found to index phonological as well as acoustic feature processing to the nonsense word stimuli. An enhanced negativity for the /pt/ cluster relative to its contrast sequence (i.e., /pət/) occurred only for the Polish listeners, suggesting that neural networks within non-primary auditory cortex may be involved in early cortical phonological processing.

Focusing the lens of language experience: Perception of Ma'di stops by Greek and English bilinguals and monolinguals

Monolingual listeners are constrained by native language experience when categorizing and discriminating unfamiliar non-native contrasts. Are early bilinguals constrained in the same way by their two languages, or do they possess an advantage? Greek-English bilinguals in either Greek or English language mode were compared to monolinguals on categorization and discrimination of Ma'di stop-voicing distinctions that are non-native to both languages. As predicted, English monolinguals categorized Ma'di prevoiced plosive and implosive stops and the coronal voiceless stop as English voiced stops. The Greek monolinguals categorized the Ma'di short-lag voiceless stops as Greek voiceless stops, and the prevoiced implosive stops and the coronal prevoiced stop as Greek voiced stops. Ma'di prenasalized stops were uncategorized. Greek monolinguals discriminated the non-native voiced-voiceless contrasts very well, whereas the English monolinguals did poorly. Bilinguals were given all oral and written instructions either in English or in Greek (language mode manipulation). Each language mode subgroup categorized Ma'di stop-voicing comparably to the corresponding monolingual group. However, the bilinguals' discrimination was unaffected by language mode: both subgroups performed intermediate to the monolinguals for the prevoiced-voiceless contrast. Thus, bilinguals do not possess an advantage for unfamiliar non-native contrasts, but are nonetheless uniquely configured language users, differing from either monolingual group.