Individual aptitude in Mandarin lexical tone perception predicts effectiveness of high-variability training

Makiko Sadakata · James M. McQueen

82 citations0/0 files storedFrontiers in Psychology

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Phonetics and Phonology Research EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning Categorization, perception, and language

Abstract

Although the high-variability training method can enhance learning of non-native speech categories, this can depend on individuals' aptitude. The current study asked how general the effects of perceptual aptitude are by testing whether they occur with training materials spoken by native speakers and whether they depend on the nature of the to-be-learned material. Forty-five native Dutch listeners took part in a 5-day training procedure in which they identified bisyllabic Mandarin pseudowords (e.g., asa) pronounced with different lexical tone combinations. The training materials were presented to different groups of listeners at three levels of variability: low (many repetitions of a limited set of words recorded by a single speaker), medium (fewer repetitions of a more variable set of words recorded by three speakers), and high (similar to medium but with five speakers). Overall, variability did not influence learning performance, but this was due to an interaction with individuals' perceptual aptitude: increasing variability hindered improvements in performance for low-aptitude perceivers while it helped improvements in performance for high-aptitude perceivers. These results show that the previously observed interaction between individuals' aptitude and effects of degree of variability extends to natural tokens of Mandarin speech. This interaction was not found, however, in a closely matched study in which native Dutch listeners were trained on the Japanese geminate/singleton consonant contrast. This may indicate that the effectiveness of high-variability training depends not only on individuals' aptitude in speech perception but also on the nature of the categories being acquired.

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References

2011Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer 1991Human adults and human infants show a “perceptual magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not 1991Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: A first report 1997Training Japanese listeners to identify English / r / and / l /: IV. Some effects of perceptual learning on speech production 2001Discrimination of non-native consonant contrasts varying in perceptual assimilation to the listener’s native phonological system 1988Examination of perceptual reorganization for nonnative speech contrasts: Zulu click discrimination by English-speaking adults and infants.1999Training American listeners to perceive Mandarin tones 1988Examination of perceptual reorganization for nonnative speech contrasts: Zulu click discrimination by English-speaking adults and infants.

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2018Talker and Acoustic Variability in Learning to Produce Nonnative Sounds: Evidence from Articulatory Training 2017High or low? Comparing high and low-variability phonetic training in adult and child second language learners 2020Do Explicit Instruction and High Variability Phonetic Training Improve Nonnative Speakers’ Mandarin Tone Productions?

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