Speech processing requires sensitivity to long-term regularities of the native language yet demands listeners to flexibly adapt to perturbations that arise from talker idiosyncrasies such as nonnative accent. The present experiments investigate whether listeners exhibit dimension-based statistical learning of correlations between acoustic dimensions defining perceptual space for a given speech segment. While engaged in a word recognition task guided by a perceptually unambiguous voice-onset time (VOT) acoustics to signal beer, pier, deer, or tear, listeners were exposed incidentally to an artificial “accent” deviating from English norms in its correlation of the pitch onset of the following vowel (F0) to VOT. Results across four experiments are indicative of rapid, dimension-based statistical learning; reliance on the F0 dimension in word recognition was rapidly down-weighted in response to the perturbation of the correlation between F0 and VOT dimensions. However, listeners did not simply mirror the short-term input statistics. Instead, response patterns were consistent with a lingering influence of sensitivity to the long-term regularities of English. This suggests that the very acoustic dimensions defining perceptual space are not fixed and, rather, are dynamically and rapidly adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of local experience, such as might arise from nonnative-accent, dialect, or dysarthria. The current findings extend demonstrations of “object-based” statistical learning across speech segments to include incidental, online statistical learning of regularities residing within a speech segment.

This study explores acoustic correlates to the singleton vs. geminate stop length contrast in Japanese. The proposal examined is that multiple acoustic features covary with the stop length distinction and that these features are available in the signal as potential secondary cues. The results support the proposal, revealing the presence of several acoustic features covarying with the singleton vs. geminate contrast in both durational and non-durational domains. Specifically, the preceding vowel is longer, the following vowel is shorter, there are greater fundamental frequency and intensity changes from the preceding to the following vowel, and there is evidence of more creakiness in voice quality for geminate than singleton consonants. It is also demonstrated that the vowel durations, as well as fundamental frequency and intensity changes have fairly strong categorization power.

Speech perception flexibly adapts to short-term regularities of ambient speech input. Recent research demonstrates that the function of an acoustic dimension for speech categorization at a given time is relative to its relationship to the evolving distribution of dimensional regularity across time, and not simply to a fixed value along the dimension. Two experiments examine the nature of this dimension-based statistical learning in online word recognition, testing generalization of learning across phonetic categories. While engaged in a word recognition task guided by perceptually unambiguous voice-onset time (VOT) acoustics signaling stop voicing in either bilabial rhymes, beer and pier, or alveolar rhymes, deer and tear, listeners were exposed incidentally to an artificial “accent” deviating from English norms in its correlation of the pitch onset of the following vowel (F0) with VOT (Experiment 1). Exposure to the change in the correlation of F0 with VOT led listeners to down-weight reliance on F0 in voicing categorization, indicating dimension-based statistical learning. This learning was observed only for the “accented” contrast varying in its F0/VOT relationship during exposure; learning did not generalize to the other place of articulation. Another group of listeners experienced competing F0/VOT correlations across place of articulation such that the global correlation for voicing was stable, but locally correlations across voicing pairs were opposing (e.g., “accented” beer and pier, “canonical” deer and tear, Experiment 2). Listeners showed dimension-based learning only for the accented pair, not the canonical pair, indicating that they are able to track separate acoustic statistics across place of articulation, that is, for /b-p/ and /d-t/. This suggests that dimension-based learning does not operate obligatorily at the phonological level of stop voicing.

Speech categories are defined by multiple acoustic dimensions, and listeners give differential weighting to dimensions in phonetic categorization. The informativeness (predictive strength) of dimensions for categorization is considered an important factor in determining perceptual weighting. However, it is unknown how the perceptual system weighs acoustic dimensions with similar informativeness. This study investigates perceptual weighting of two acoustic dimensions with similar informativeness, exploiting the absolute and relative durations that are nearly equivalent in signaling Japanese singleton and geminate stop categories. In the perception experiments, listeners showed strong individual differences in their perceptual weighting of absolute and relative durations. Furthermore, these individual patterns were stable over repeated testing across as long as 2 months and were resistant to perturbation through short-term manipulation of speech input. Listeners own speech productions were not predictive of how they weighted relative and absolute duration. Despite the theoretical advantage of relative (as opposed to absolute) duration cues across contexts, relative cues are not utilized by all listeners. Moreover, examination of individual differences in cue weighting is a useful tool in exposing the complex relationship between perceptual cue weighting and language regularities.