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Journal Article

Development of non-native vowel discrimination: Improvement without exposure

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Tsuji,  Sho
Center for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Language Comprehension Department, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

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Mazuka, R., Hasegawa, M., & Tsuji, S. (2014). Development of non-native vowel discrimination: Improvement without exposure. Developmental Psychobiology, 56(2), 192-209. doi:10.1002/dev.21193.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0014-BB7E-1
Abstract
he present study tested Japanese 4.5- and 10-month old infants' ability to discriminate three German vowel pairs, none of which are contrastive in Japanese, using a visual habituation–dishabituation paradigm. Japanese adults' discrimination of the same pairs was also tested. The results revealed that Japanese 4.5-month old infants discriminated the German /bu:k/-/by:k/ contrast, but they showed no evidence of discriminating the /bi:k/-/be:k/ or /bu:k/-/bo:k/ contrasts. Japanese 10-month old infants, on the other hand, discriminated the German /bi:k/-/be:k/ contrast, while they showed no evidence of discriminating the /bu:k/-/by:k/ or /bu:k/-/bo:k/ contrasts. Japanese adults, in contrast, were highly accurate in their discrimination of all of the pairs. The results indicate that discrimination of non-native contrasts is not always easy even for young infants, and that their ability to discriminate non-native contrasts can improve with age even when they receive no exposure to a language in which the given contrast is phonemic. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 192–209, 2014.