TRAINING JAPANESE LISTENERS TO IDENTIFY ENGLISH VERTICAL-BAR-R-VERTICAL-BAR AND VERTICAL-BAR-L-VERTICAL-BAR .4. SOME EFFECTS OF PERCEPTUAL-LEARNING ON SPEECH PRODUCT

This study investigated the effects of training in /r/-/l/ perceptual identification on /r/-/l/ production by adult Japanese speakers. Subje cts were recorded producing English words that contrast /r/ and /l/ be fore and after participating in an extended period of /r/-/l/ identifi cation training using a high-variability presentation format. All subj ects showed significant perceptual learning as a result of the trainin g program, and this perceptual learning generalized to novel items spo ken by new talkers. Improvement in the Japanese trainees' /r/-/l/ spok en utterances as a consequence of perceptual training was evaluated us ing two separate tests with native English listeners. First, a direct comparison of the pretest and post-test tokens showed significant impr ovement in the perceived rating of /r/ and /l/ productions as a conseq uence of perceptual learning. Second, the post-test productions were m ore accurately identified by English listeners than the pretest produc tions in a two-alternative minimal-pair identification procedure. Thes e results indicate that the knowledge gained during perceptual learnin g of /r/ and /l/ transferred to the production domain, and thus provid es novel information regarding the relationship between speech percept ion and production. (C) 1997 Acoustical Society of America.