The impact of auditory feedback on error monitoring and phonetic category representation in a second language
Final Report Abstract
The project set out to explain why it is so difficult for late second language (L2) learners to further improve their L2 pronunciation even though they do perceive the accent in fellow learners. Two potential cognitive causes for L2 learners’ problems in improving their L2 speech were assessed from a number of different angles. First important results were already reported after the first part of the project (in the progress report). Based on these results the second part of the project expanded the topics in various directions to complete the picture. The two main goals of the project were to asses (1) deficits in using auditory feedback for error monitoring, and (2) constraints on the establishment of L2 phonetic category representations as underlying factors for L2 learners' failure to improve L2 processing. With regard to (1) we hypothesized that self-correction of L2 pronunciation rarely occurs because learners do not notice their own errors and hence the need for improvement may not be obvious. The main finding of the project that highlights the validity of this hypothesis was that L2 learners not only recognize their L2 speech as better but also rate their own accents as better than that of their peers - even if they do not recognize their own voice and factors like overall proficiency and perceived similarity of the heard voice to one's own is accounted for. With regard to (2) the contribution of the project lies in the combination of the different angles that were taken on this issue. We demonstrated new nuances to the widely assumed claim that learners' success in establishing L2 phonological categories depends on the relation to the L1 phonological inventory by testing the use of cues on the 'easy' phone of a difficult L2 contrast, the role of allophonic variation, and phonological reduction. We further explained aspects of how listeners encode difficult L2 sound contrasts into the lexicon and addressed the underlying workings of perceptual adaptation even though the latter by taking a step back to first address L1 processing. Finally, the methodological innovation of using OAF to study the interface between speech perception and speech production, and specifically the intricate patterns found for reactions to temporal OAF opened the way for many future projects to fully understand the impact of error monitoring during speech production. Given the overall output of 21 journal publications and 39 conference presentations since the start of the project in 2015, with two finished doctoral dissertations within the project, one habilitation and several BA and MA theses the effort appears to have paid off and the project successfully concluded - at least from the perspective of those involved in the research. The publication of the journal article "My English sounds better than yours: Second-language learners perceive their own accent as better than that of their peers" (2020) was featured in two press releases, one at LMU Munich and the other at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This led to an enormous press echo across Europe but reaching as far as India. Eva Reinisch gave several radio interviews, and Nikola Eger and Eva Reinisch were featured in the Science TV show "Gut zu wissen" of Bayerischer Rundfunk. A selection of radio stations and newspapers that featured our findings were: Austria: ORF (science.orf.at), Kurier, Der Standard, Wiener Zeitung, OE1, FM4; Germany: BR, MDR, WDR (Deutschlandfunk), WDR5; Switzerland: Neue Züricher Zeitung, Luzerner Zeitung, Aargauer Zeitung.
Publications
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(2019). Imitation in a second language relies on phonological categories but does not reflect the productive usage of difficult sound contrasts. Language and Speech, 62, 594-622
Llompart, M. & Reinisch, E.
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(2019). Learning a new sound pair in a second language: Italian learners and German glottal consonants. Journal of Phonetics, 77, Article number 100917
Eger, N. A., Mitterer, H., & Reinisch, E.
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(2019). The robustness of lexical representations in a second language relates to phonetic flexibility for difficult sound contrasts. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22, 1085-1100
Llompart, M. & Reinisch, E.
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(2019). The role of vowel length and glottalization in German learners' perception of the English coda stop voicing contrast. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 10(1), 18
Reinisch, E. & Penney, J.
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(2020). My English sounds better than yours: Second-language learners perceive their own accent as better than that of their peers. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0227643
Mitterer, H., Eger, N. A., & Reinisch, E.
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(2020). Spectral context effects are modulated by selective attention in 'cocktail party' settings. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 82, 1318-1332
Bosker, H.-R., Sjerps, M. J., & Reinisch, E.
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(2020). Temporal contrast effects in human speech perception are immune to selective attention. Scientific Reports, 10, 5607
Bosker, H.-R., Sjerps, M. J., & Reinisch, E.
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(2020). The impact of free allophonic variation on the perception of second language phonological categories. Frontiers in Communication: Language Sciences, 5, article 47
Reinisch, E., Juhl, K. I., & Llompart, M.
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(2020). The phonological form of lexical items modulates the encoding of challenging second-language sound contrasts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46, 1590-1610
Llompart, M. & Reinisch, E.
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(2021). Lexical representations can rapidly be updated in the early stages of second-language word learning. Journal of Phonetics, 88, 101080
Llompart, M. & Reinisch, E.
