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Generalization in perceptual learning for speech

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Abstract

Lexical context strongly influences listeners’ identification of ambiguous sounds. For example, a sound midway between /f/ and /s/ is reported as /f/ in “sheri_’” but as /s/ in “Pari_.” Norris, McQueen, and Cutler (2003) have demonstrated that after hearing such lexically determined phonemes, listeners expand their phonemic categories to include more ambiguous tokens than before. We tested whether listeners adjust their phonemic categories for a specific speaker: Do listeners learn a particular speaker’s “accent”? Similarly, we examined whether perceptual learning is specific to the particular ambiguous phonemes that listeners hear, or whether the adjustments generalize to related sounds. Participants heard ambiguous /d/ or /t/ phonemes during a lexical decision task. They then categorized sounds on /d/-/t/ and /b/-/p/ continua, either in the same voice that they had heard for lexical decision, or in a different voice. Perceptual learning generalized across both speaker and test continua: Changes in perceptual representations are robust and broadly tuned.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York

    Tanya Kraljic & Arthur G. Samuel

Authors
  1. Tanya Kraljic
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  2. Arthur G. Samuel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tanya Kraljic.

Additional information

This project was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, by NIMH Grant R0151663, and by NSF Grant 0325188. We thank Steve Goldinger and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive suggestions.

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Kraljic, T., Samuel, A.G. Generalization in perceptual learning for speech. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 262–268 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193841

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193841

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