Pronunciation variation is under-studied in infant-directed speech, particularly for consonants. Regressive place assimilation involves a word-final alveolar stop taking the place of articulation of a following word-initial consonant. We investigated pronunciation variation in word-final alveolar stop consonants in storybooks read by forty-eight mothers in adult-directed or infant-directed styl...

High-variability phonetic training is effective in the acquisition of foreign language sounds. Previous studies have largely focused on small sets of contrasts, and have not controlled for the quantity of prior or simultaneous exposure to new sounds. The current study examined the effectiveness of phonetic training in full-inventory foreign language consonant acquisition by listeners with no pr...

This study investigates the perception of the German coda nasal contrast /n/-/m/-/ŋ/ by Japanese learners of German compared to German native speakers. The phonological distribution of coda nasals differs with/without word boundaries in the two languages. Word final coda before a pause in Japanese is neutralized to /ɴ/ but the place feature remains in German. Assimilation of coda nasals before ...

A variational data assimilation technique was used to estimate optimal discretization of interpolation operators and derivatives in the nodes adjacent to the rigid boundary. Assimilation of artificially generated observational data in the shallow-water model in a square box and assimilation of real observations in the model of the Black sea are discussed. It is shown in both experiments that co...

ness, possibly as a continuum from optional to obligatory and from gradient to categorical (see Scobbie 2007 for a related proposal). A simplified schematic representation of these continua, representing speaker K3’s (presumed) knowledge of coronal and labial assimilation, is shown in Fig. 6. On the optional/obligatory dimension, both processes are optional (variable), yet differ in the relativ...

This study explores how experience with native language (L1) diphthongs influences the assimilation of non-native diphthongs. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of L1 attunement, native Australian English (AusE) speakers categorized and rated the Danish diphthongs, in addition to the monophthongs, in relation to their entire native vowel inventory. Short Danish vowels were assimilated to b...

Native Spanish speakers and Canadian English learners of Spanish produced the five Spanish vowels in utterance final /sV/ syllables. The syllables were presented in random order to Spanish and English listeners for identification of vowels in terms of Spanish vowel categories. The English listeners also identified the vowels in terms of English vowel categories. Initial analysis of perceptual r...

A prolonged exposure (i.e., perceptual adaptation) to a male or a female face can produce changes (i.e., aftereffects) in the subsequent gender attribution of a neutral or average face, so that it appears respectively more female or more male. Studies using imagery adaptation and its aftereffects have yielded conflicting results. In the present study we used an adaptation paradigm with both ima...