Selective attention and the acquisition of new phonetic categories.

Full Abstract

A class of selective attention models often applied to speech perception is used to study effects of training on the perception of an unfamiliar phonetic contrast. Attention-to-dimension (A2D) models of perceptual learning assume that the dimensions that structure listeners' perceptual space are constant and that learning involves only the reweighting of existing dimensions to emphasize or de-emphasize different sensory dimensions. Multidimensional scaling is used to identify the acoustic-phonetic dimensions listeners use before and after training to recognize the 3 classes of Korean stop consonants. Results suggest that A2D models can account for some observed restructuring of listeners' perceptual space, but listeners also show evidence of directing attention to a previously unattended dimension of phonetic contrast.

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Author information

Author/s: Francis, Alexander L (AL); Nusbaum, Howard C (HC);

Affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. afrancis@hkusua.hku.hk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 28 (issue 2) : pp 349-66

Dates: Created 2002/05/09; Completed 2003/01/24; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 11999859, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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