Our aim was to investigate perceptual attunement (PA) in vowel perception of Dutch-learning infants (6-8-10-month-olds) using the hybrid visual fixation paradigm (Houston et al., 2007). Infants were habituated to one phoneme and subsequently tested on items in which a token of the habituated phoneme alternated with either another token of the same…

Pronunciation learners can benefit from peer feedback in a Computermediated Communication (CMC) environment that allows them to notice segmentals and suprasegmentals. This paper explores the intelligibility judgments of same-L1 peers using P-Check (Version2, https://ver2.jp), a Learning Management System (LMS) plug-in that aggregates peer feedback…

Word segmentation in L2 is not as optimal as in L1 because many, though not all, cues to signal word boundaries appear to be largely language-specific. Native English listeners use short-lag versus long-lag VOTs in segmenting pairs such as "Lou spills" versus "loose pills." Polish contrasts negative versus short-lag VOTs, so…

The present study investigated first language (L1) and second language (L2) Chinese categorization of tones and segments and use of tones and segments in lexical access. Previous research has shown that English listeners rely more on pitch height than pitch direction when perceiving lexical tones; however, it remains unclear if this superior use…

The question of a sensitive period in language acquisition has been subject to extensive research and debate for more than half a century. While it has been well established that the ability to learn new languages declines in early years, the extent to which this outcome depends on biological maturation in contrast to previously acquired knowledge…

Music and rhythm have been defined as powerful aids to language learning, memory, and recall. But is this due to structural and motivational properties of instrumental music and songs, or is there a relation between learners' language aptitude and musical intelligence? It seems that everyone who feels motivated to do it is able to learn other…

Two Japanese undergraduate students were taught to pronounce and discriminate English words containing unfamiliar phonemic contrasts. Teaching pronunciation was found to be easier than teaching listening discrimination. Teaching listening discrimination resulted in collateral improvement in pronunciation, and, to a lesser extent, vice versa.…

Behavioral data establish a dramatic change in infants' phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. Foreign-language phonetic discrimination significantly declines with increasing age. Using a longitudinal design, we examined the electrophysiological responses of 7- and 11-month-old American infants to native and non-native consonant…

The Auditory Discrimination in Depth (A.D.D.) Program suggests that there is a direct relationship between auditory discrimination or auditory perceptual ability and the development of competency in language and literacy skills. (Auditory perceptual ability is defined as the ability to discriminate individual phonemes and to track their changing…

This document is the seventh report in the Language Research in Progress (LRIP) series, and lists a wide variety of language-related research projects current between April 1968 and November 1968. Research projects terminated in the six months prior to publication are included as well. Approximately 250 projects in the U.S. and abroad are…