Perceiving nonnative vowels: the effect of context on perception as evidenced by event-related brain potentials.
In 2 experiments, the authors examined the electrophysiological auditory responses of monolingual French listeners to American English vowel contrasts as a function of the surrounding vowel context. The context was determined on the basis of behavioral results (C. Meunier, C. Frenck-Mestre, T. Lelekov-Boissard, & M. Le Besnaris, 2003, 2004). In the 1st experiment, where the vowel /I/ was placed in a context in which it could easily be discriminated from the surrounding vowels (82% /i/ and 3% /ae/), the electrophysiological response to this vowel showed both acoustic and phonemic responses in line with behavioral results. In the 2nd experiment, where the same vowel /i/ was placed in a difficult context (82% /epsilon/ and 3% /ae/), the electrophysiological response of French participants to this vowel revealed a greatly reduced phonemic response, showing assimilation of the vowel to the surrounding context, again in line with behavioral results. The results of a 3rd control experiment with American participants showed both an acoustic and a phonemic response to the vowel /i/ in the difficult context (82% /epsilon/ and 3% /ae/). This pattern demonstrates the fluctuations in perception as a function of context, and hints at a supple system that may be modified through experience.
Frenck-Mestre
Cheryl
C
Laboratoire Parole et Language, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universite de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France. frenck@up.univ-aix.fr
Meunier
Christine
C
Espesser
Robert
R
Daffner
Kirk
K
Holcomb
Phillip
P
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001300:Audiometry, Evoked Response; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011930:Reaction Time; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*