The efficiency of cross-dialectal word recognition

This research was supported by a Max Planck Society doctoral fellowship and a Fulbright Foundation award, both to the first author. We thank Delphine Dahan, University of Pennsylvania, for enabling the testing of the participants.Dialects of the same language can differ in the casual speech processes they allow; e.g., British English allows the insertion of [r] at word boundaries in sequences such as saw ice, while American English does not. In two speeded word recognition experiments, American listeners heard such British English sequences; in contrast to non-native listeners, they accurately perceived intended vowel-initial words even with intrusive [r]. Thus despite input mismatches, cross-dialectal word recognition benefits from the full power of native-language processing.peer-reviewe

Pointing gestures do not influence the perception of lexical stress

We investigated whether seeing a pointing gesture influences the perceived lexical stress. A pitch contour continuum between the Dutch words "CAnon" ('canon') and "kaNON" ('cannon') was presented along with a pointing gesture during the first or the second syllable. Pointing gestures following natural recordings but not Gaussian functions influenced stress perception (Experiment 1 and 2), especially when auditory context preceded (Experiment 2). This was not replicated in Experiment 3. Natural pointing gestures failed to affect the categorization of a pitch peak timing continuum (Experiment 4). There is thus no convincing evidence that seeing a pointing gesture influences lexical stress perception.This research was supported in part by an Innovational Research Incentive Scheme Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded to first author. The authors thank Lies Cuijpers for her help with the experiments.peer-reviewe

Perceptual learning of liquids

Previous research on lexically-guided perceptual learning has focussed on contrasts that differ primarily in local cues, such as plosive and fricative contrasts. The present research had two aims: to investigate whether perceptual learning occurs for a contrast with non-local cues, the /l/-/r/ contrast, and to establish whether STRAIGHT can be used to create ambiguous sounds on an /l/-/r/ continuum. Listening experiments showed lexically-guided learning about the /l/-/r/ contrast. Listeners can thus tune in to unusual speech sounds characterised by non-local cues. Moreover, STRAIGHT can be used to create stimuli for perceptual learning experiments, opening up new research possibilities. Index Terms: perceptual learning, morphing, liquids, human word recognition, STRAIGHT.The research by Odette Scharenborg was partly sponsored by the Max Planck International Research Network on Aging. We thank Denise Moerel, Laurence Bruggeman, Lies Cuijpers, Michael Wiechers, Willemijn van den Berg, and Zhou Fang for assistance in preparing and running these experiments and Marijt Witteman for recording the stimuli.peer-reviewe