When acquiring a second language, learners must become able to perceive the difference between novel sounds ("discrimination") and also associate strings of sounds with distinct vocabulary items ("lexical encoding"). Recent research has questioned whether discrimination is a sufficient or necessary condition for encoding, and…

The present investigation examines English speakers' ability to identify and discriminate non-native consonant length contrast. Three groups (L1 English No-Instruction, L1 English Instruction, and L1 Finnish control) performed a speeded forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination task on Finnish non-words (e.g.…

Research shows that information received by one brain hemisphere (e.g., auditory messages entering the right ear) is processed and transferred to the other, interpretation being a combination of right and left brain processing, with high intensity messages shifting control from the left to the right brain. If information is received by one…