The effects of individual differences in native perception on discrimination of a novel non-native contrast

Abstract

Native (L1) phonetic categories can constrain the perception of non-native contrasts which deviate from the listener’s L1 (Best & Tyler, 2007; Flege, 1995). Yet, some individuals are remarkably successful at accurately perceiving non-native sounds (e.g., Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken, & Schils, 1997). We hypothesize that compact L1 categories give an initial advantage in distinguishing non-native contrasts. Sixty-eight Spanish monolinguals were tested on the degree of compactness of their native category /i/, measured through a goodness-of-fit rating task. Participants listened to synthesized variants of the Spanish /i/ vowel (differing in F1, F2, or both) and rated them as either good or bad exemplars of their representation of this category. An individual /i/ compactness index was calculated for each participant and related to the individual perceived dissimilarity score for the novel Russian contrast /i – ɨ/. The Russian contrast /i – ɨ/ is a problematic contrast to perceive for Spanish speakers due to the absence of /ɨ/ in the Spanish vowel inventory, a sound acoustically very similar to /i/. In this study, the compactness of the L1 category /i/ weakly predicted perceptual sensitivity (dissimilarity scores) for the Russian contrast /i – ɨ/.