title: Individual differences in the discrimination of novel speech sounds: effects of sex, temporal processing, musical and cognitive abilities.
abstract: This study examined whether rapid temporal auditory processing, verbal working memory capacity, non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, musical ability and prior foreign language experience predicted how well native English speakers (N=120) discriminated Norwegian tonal and vowel contrasts as well as a non-speech analogue of the tonal contrast and a native vowel contrast presented over noise. Results confirmed a male advantage for temporal and tonal processing, and also revealed that temporal processing was associated with both non-verbal intelligence and speech processing. In contrast, effects of musical ability on non-native speech-sound processing and of inhibitory control on vowel discrimination were not mediated by temporal processing. These results suggest that individual differences in non-native speech-sound processing are to some extent determined by temporal auditory processing ability, in which males perform better, but are also determined by a host of other abilities that are deployed flexibly depending on the characteristics of the target sounds.
authors.affiliation: University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom. v.kempe@abertay.ac.uk
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kempe
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Thoresen
authors.forename: Neil W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schaeffler
authors.forename: Patricia J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Brooks
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D010700:Phonetics; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult