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Cross-language specialization in phonetic processing: English and Hindi perception of /w/-/v/ speech and nonspeech
Paul Iverson1, Anita Wagner, Melanie Pinet
1University College London, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Department of Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom. p.iverson@ucl.ac.uk
Abstract:
This study examined the perceptual specialization for native-language speech sounds, by comparing native Hindi and English speakers in their perception of a graded set of English /w/-/v/ stimuli that varied in similarity to natural speech. The results demonstrated that language experience does not affect general auditory processes for these types of sounds; there were strong cross-language differences for speech stimuli, and none for stimuli that were nonspeech. However, the cross-language differences extended into a gray area of speech-like stimuli that were difficult to classify, suggesting that the specialization occurred in phonetic processing prior to categorization.
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