A vowel is a vowel: Generalizing newly learned phonotactic constraints to new contexts.

Abstract

Adults can learn novel phonotactic constraints from brief listening experience. We investigated the representations underlying phonotactic learning by testing generalization to syllables containing new vowels. Adults heard consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) study syllables in which particular consonants were artificially restricted to onset or coda position (e.g., /f/ is an onset, /s/ is a coda). Subjects were quicker to repeat novel constraint-following (legal) than constraint-violating (illegal) test syllables whether they contained a vowel used in the study syllables (training vowel) or a new (transfer) vowel. This effect emerged regardless of the acoustic similarity between training and transfer vowels. Listeners thus learned and generalized phonotactic constraints that can be characterized as simple first-order constraints on consonant position. Rapid generalization independent of vowel context provides evidence that vowels and consonants are represented independently by processes underlying phonotactic learning. Keywords speech perception; phonological development; statistical learning; phonotactic learning; generalization Phonotactic constraints describe how speech segments are combined in a language. For example, the /ŋ/ at the end of 'sing' never begins English words, though it can be word-initial in other languages. Alongside such categorical constraints, languages have probabilistic constraints: Some permissible sequences are more likely than others (e.g., Frisch, Pierrehumbert, & Broe, 2004;Kessler & Treiman, 1997;Lee & Goldrick, 2008). Implicit knowledge of these categorical and probabilistic constraints influences speech processing: Native speakers more readily perceive and produce sound sequences that are more probable in their language (e.g., Brown & Hildum, 1956;Pitt, 1998;Stemberger, 1990;Treiman, Kessler, Knewasser, Tincoff, & Bowman, 2000;Vitevitch, Armbrüster, & Chu, 2004).Address for correspondence: Kyle E. Chambers, Department of Psychology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Ave, Saint Peter, MN 56082 United States kchamber@gustavus.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/pubs/journals/xlm. Cross-linguistic variability in phonotactic patterns suggests that these patterns are at least partly learned (e.g., Moreton, 2002;Wilson, 2006). Furthermore, evidence of sensitivity to probabilistic constraints suggests that phonotactic learning arises from ongoing experience with phonological sequences (Frisch et al., 2004). On this hypothesis, natural phonotactic knowledge is continually...

It takes two to kiss, but does it take three to give a kiss? Categorization based on thematic roles

“…First, we explicitly trained participants to pay attention to semantic roles and provided extensive instructions (on the effect of instructions, see Bencini & Goldberg, 2000), thus we cannot say how sorting would occur in the absence of training. Nevertheless, this method is commonly used to understand how learners conceptualize potentially ambiguous stimuli (see e.g., Hommel, Alonso & Fuentes, 2003;Chambers, Onishi & Fisher, 2010). When participants are trained using one type of stimuli (e.g., transparent one--, two--and three--argument pictures) and then tested with very different stimuli (e.g., light--verb constructions), we can learn how they generalize their training.…”

An onset is an onset: Evidence from abstraction of newly-learned phonotactic constraints

“…Previous phonotactic learning experiments (e.g., Chambers, Onishi, & Fisher, 2003, 2010, 2011; Dell, Reed, Adams, & Meyer, 2000; Goldrick & Larson, 2008; Onishi, Chambers, & Fisher, 2002; Seidl, Cristià, Bernard, & Onishi, 2009; Warker, 2013; Warker & Dell, 2006) have described phonotactic patterns at the level of the syllable, but they did not directly test whether representations were at the syllable or word level (since most have used one-syllable, consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC items). The current experiments seek evidence that phonotactic knowledge can be represented at the level of the syllable (or syllable-sized unit), independent of the word, by examining whether syllable-level patterns generalize across word position and word structure, thus asking whether an onset is an onset and a coda is a coda regardless of word structure and position.…”

Learning novel phonotactics from exposure to continuous speech

“…For example, it has been shown that learners induce constraints on consonants across different vowel contexts, suggesting that consonants and vowels are processed independently (Bonatti et al, 2005;Chambers et al, 2010). In addition, several studies indicate that patterns of natural classes are easier to learn than patterns of arbitrary classes of segments (Cristià & Seidl, 2008;Finley & Badecker, 2009;Seidl & Buckley, 2005).…”