Sensorimotor influence on speech perception in adults: Extension of Bruderer et al.

(2015)
Max Freeland, Alex Hailman, Arielle McEntyre, Emily Otto, Eva Yeh, Makkiya Petross, Tommy Wiaduck
University of Michigan | LING 412-497 FA21
Participants
Background ● 24 participants were each presented with recordings: 12 under the Results & Discussion
teether condition (A) and 12 under the gummy condition (B)
• Adults tend to be poor discriminators of non-native speech contrasts Results
but young infants are generally accurate discriminators (Werker & • No difference between gummy (62% response accuracy) and
Tees 1984). teether (60.9%) pacifier conditions (Fig. 1)
• The exception: young infants’ do not discriminate non-native lingual • Considerable cross-listener variation in both gummy and teether
contrasts (e.g. Hindi dental-retroflex contrast for English-learning participant groups (Fig. 2 & Fig. 3)
infants) if their tongue tip is constrained by a teether during the Teether Pacifier Gummy Pacifier • About 40% of participants exhibited near-chance performance, with
listening task (Bruderer et al. 2015, Choi et al. 2019). Procedure many showing a bias toward “misses” (i.e., hearing alternating
• This study investigates whether adults’ discrimination similarly ● Conducted in sound lab over headphones; all heard the same sequences as non-alternating) regardless of the pacifier
decreases when their lingual movements are constrained. instructions environment
● Familiarization task: listeners heard alternating (Alt) and • Floor effects (i.e., high proportion of chance performance) make it
non-alternating (NAlt) [ba], [da] strings produced by English speaker difficult to compare pacifier conditions
Discussion
Research Question & Hypothesis ● Same-different task: Are the initial consonants in these strings the
same or different? ● Lack of pacifier effect may be a result of

● Main task: All participants judged 4 Alt (same), 4 NAlt (different) ● Task difficulty (contrasting sounds too similar for these listeners)
Research Question ● Adults, unlike infants, don’t recruit their sensorimotor system
Hindi [ad̪], [aɖ] strings
● Do adults, like infants, recruit their sensorimotor system when
● Between-subject design: 12 participants listened to stimuli after during perception (at least in this type of task)
perceiving non-native speech sounds? ● Test participants’ average accuracy (near 60%) was lower than that
placing flat teether (which constrained tongue tip) in their mouth; 12
had gummy teether (no influence on tongue) of pilot participants (70%)
Hypothesis
● Although adults are not highly accurate discriminators of non-native

speech distinctions, they should be even less accurate

Methods
Stimuli FIGURE 2 FIGURE 3
● Male native Hindi speaker recorded producing multiple tokens of

dental [d̪] and retroflex [ɖ] in initial, final, and intervocalic position. FIGURE 1

● Based on pilot testing, 4 different [ad ̪ ] and 4 different [aɖ] stimuli that Conclusions
were discriminated above chance were chosen for the main test.
● Roughly replicating the alternating/non-alternating test paradigm
References • In this experiment, there is not an effect of wearing a pacifier on
with infants, stimuli were grouped into stimulus strings of 8 syllables listener discrimination, suggesting that perceptual effects of
Bruderer, A. G., Danielson, D. K., Kandhadai, P., & Werker, J. F. (2015). Sensorimotor influences on speech
(500 ms ISI): perception in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(44), 13531-13536. sensorimotor information might not hold for adults.
○4 non-alternating strings; 2 [ad̪] strings, 2 [aɖ] strings • Future research should explore clearer contrasts for adults listeners
Choi, D., Bruderer, A. G., & Werker, J. F. (2019). Sensorimotor influences on speech perception in pre-babbling
○4 alternating strings each with 4 [ad̪] and 4 [aɖ] infants: Replication and extension of Bruderer et al.(2015). Psychonomic bulletin & review, 26(4), 1388-1399. to discriminate. Due to the fact that adults have lost their
● Stimuli were edited and normalized for intensity in Praat discriminatory ability, their tests should be easier than the tests
Werker, J. F., & Tees, R. C. (1984). Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization
during the first year of life. Infant behavior and development, 7(1), 49-63. performed on infants to see if a pacifier effect can still be seen.