Individual Differences in Speech Perception

Meghan Clayards, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and School of Communication Sciences and Disordersat, McGill University

• Exploring Phonetics
• Probabilistic speech cues
• Analyzing implications of speech perception

In order to understand spoken words, listeners integrate information across multiple acoustic dimensions such as spectral frequencies and durations. For each phonological contrasts we must learn which dimensions are relevant and how much to pay attention to each dimension (cue weights). Because these weights are language specific, they have to be relearned in a second language. This talk will discuss challenges for second language learners, focusing on English front vowels and individual differences in how learners address this challenge. I will discuss data from a longitudinal study of Korean families who came to Montréal to learn English.