Perceptual assimilation and identification of English consonants by native speakers of Danish

This study explored the relation between the identification of non-native consonants and the perceptual assimilation of non-native consonants to native categories. In Experiment 1, native Danish listeners identified 20 initial English consonants in terms of Danish categories, and then rated the goodness of fit of these matches. The results of this perceptual assimilation experiment were used to predict how accurately Danish listeners would identify English consonants. The predictions were tested in Experiment 2, in which Danish listeners identified the same 20 initial English consonants using English response categories. Our results indicate that perceptual assimilation patterns of nonnative consonants predict identification quite well, but they also suggest that current speech learning models need to account for non-native listeners’ occasional but systematic response biases.