Neurophysiology of non-native sound discrimination

Evidence from German vowels and consonants in successive French–German bilinguals using an MMN oddball paradigm

Bibliographic Data

ID21697671
AuthorsJane WOTTAWA (0000-0002-3855-0695, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, corresponding author), Martine Adda-Decker, Martine Adda‐Decker (0000-0003-2154-7438, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Frédéric Isel (0000-0002-2806-4837, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
Year2022
Volume25
Issue1
Pages137-147
Publication date2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBilingualism Language and Cognition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1366-7289 • E-ISSN: 1469-1841
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1366728921000468
OpenAlexW3195899338
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited51

The present electroencephalographical multi-speaker MMN oddball experiment was designed to study the phonological processing of German native and non-native speech sounds. Precisely, we focused on the perception of German /ɪ-iː/, /ɛ-ɛː/, /a-aː/ and the fricatives [ʃ] and [ç] in German natives (GG) and French learners of German (FG). As expected, our results showed that GG were able to discriminate all the critical vowel contrasts. In contrast, FG, despite their high L2 proficiency level, were only marginally sensitive to vowel length variations. Finally, neither GG nor FG discriminated the opposition between [ʃ] and [ç], as revealed by the absence of MMN response. This latter finding was interpreted in terms of low perceptual salience. Taken together, the present findings lend partial support to the Perceptual Assimilation Model for late bilinguals (PAM-L2) for speech perception of non-native phonological contrasts

Audiology · Cognitive psychology · Electroencephalography · Event-related potential · First language · German · Linguistics · Mismatch negativity · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Oddball paradigm · Perception · Sound change · Speech perception · Vowel · Computer Science · Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation · Neuroscience and Music Perception · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology

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