Best C T, McRoberts G W, Goodell E
Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2001 Feb;109(2):775-94. doi: 10.1121/1.1332378.
Classic non-native speech perception findings suggested that adults have difficulty discriminating segmental distinctions that are not employed contrastively in their own language. However, recent reports indicate a gradient of performance across non-native contrasts, ranging from near-chance to near-ceiling. Current theoretical models argue that such variations reflect systematic effects of experience with phonetic properties of native speech. The present research addressed predictions from Best's perceptual assimilation model (PAM), which incorporates both contrastive phonological and noncontrastive phonetic influences from the native language in its predictions about discrimination levels for diverse types of non-native contrasts. We evaluated the PAM hypotheses that discrimination of a non-native contrast should be near-ceiling if perceived as phonologically equivalent to a native contrast, lower though still quite good if perceived as a phonetic distinction between good versus poor exemplars of a single native consonant, and much lower if both non-native segments are phonetically equivalent in goodness of fit to a single native consonant. Two experiments assessed native English speakers' perception of Zulu and Tigrinya contrasts expected to fit those criteria. Findings supported the PAM predictions, and provided evidence for some perceptual differentiation of phonological, phonetic, and nonlinguistic information in perception of non-native speech. Theoretical implications for non-native speech perception are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research.
经典的非母语语音感知研究结果表明，成年人在辨别那些在他们自己的语言中没有对比性使用的音段差异时存在困难。然而，最近的报告显示，在非母语对比中存在一个表现梯度，从接近随机水平到接近上限水平。当前的理论模型认为，这种变化反映了母语语音的语音特性的经验所产生的系统影响。本研究探讨了贝斯特的感知同化模型（PAM）的预测，该模型在预测不同类型的非母语对比的辨别水平时，纳入了来自母语的对比性音系和非对比性语音影响。我们评估了PAM的假设，即如果一个非母语对比在音系上被感知为与母语对比等效，那么对其的辨别应该接近上限水平；如果被感知为单个母语辅音的好与差的示例之间的语音差异，辨别水平会较低但仍然相当不错；如果两个非母语音段在与单个母语辅音的拟合优度方面在语音上是等效的，那么辨别水平会低得多。两项实验评估了以英语为母语的人对预期符合这些标准的祖鲁语和提格雷尼亚语对比的感知。研究结果支持了PAM的预测，并为非母语语音感知中语音、语音和非语言信息的一些感知分化提供了证据。讨论了对非母语语音感知的理论意义，并提出了进一步研究的建议。
