Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T18:30:06.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ERP indices of vowel processing in Spanish–English bilinguals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2014

MIWAKO HISAGI ,
KAREN GARRIDO-NAG ,
HIA DATTA  and
VALERIE L. SHAFER
MIWAKO HISAGI
Affiliation:
The City University of New York – Graduate School and University Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Iona College
KAREN GARRIDO-NAG
Affiliation:
The City University of New York – Graduate School and University Center & Gallaudet University
HIA DATTA
Affiliation:
The City University of New York – Graduate School and University Center, Molloy College & Sacker Institute of Developmental Psychobiology
VALERIE L. SHAFER*
Affiliation:
The City University of New York – Graduate School and University Center
*
Address for correspondence: Valerie L. Shafer, 365 Fifth Avenue Room 7107, New York, NY 10016, USAvshafer@gc.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examined behavioral and neurophysiological indices of discrimination of an English vowel contrast [ɪ–ɛ] by early and late bilingual Spanish–English speakers, compared to monolingual English speakers. Electrophysiological measures (Mismatched Negativity – MMN) and behavioral measures (AX discrimination and forced-choice identification) were employed to examine perception of a nine-step vowel continuum, re-synthesized from natural tokens. Results revealed that (i) both monolingual and early bilinguals showed similar behavioral perception while late bilinguals performed more poorly on all behavioral tasks; and (ii) monolinguals showed robust evidence of discrimination (MMN) at a pre-attentive level that was significantly larger than found for either early or late bilinguals. These findings suggested that early input of English vowels to bilinguals did not necessarily lead to robust, automatic processing, as measured at a more attention-independent neural level; but earlier experience with a second language allowed for native-like speech perception measured with behavioral tasks.

Keywords

event-related potentials (ERPs)Mismatch Negativity (MMN)speech perceptionEnglish–Spanish bilinguals
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Special Issue 2: L3 Acquisition: A Focus on Cognitive Approaches , April 2015 , pp. 271 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to than Nancy Vidal and Cristina Padron for helping with language proficiency ratings and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. This research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Award Number HD46193 to Valerie L. Shafer. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

References

Baker, W., Trofimovich, P., Mack, M., & Flege, J. E. (2002). The effect of perceived phonetic similarity on non-native sound learning by children and adults. In Skarabela, B., Fish, S. & Do, A. H.-J. (eds.), Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 26, 36–47. Boston, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception. In Strange, W. (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, pp. 171–204. Baltimore, MA: York Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. M. (2010). Structure and process in lifespan cognitive development. In Overton, W. F. (ed.), The handbook of life-span development (vol. 1): Cognition, biology, and methods across the lifespan, pp. 195–225. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Feng, X. (2009). Language proficiency and executive control in proactive interference: Evidence from monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Brain & Language, 109, 93–100.Google Scholar
Birdsong, D. (2006). Age and second language acquisition and processing: A selective overview Language Learning, 56, Issue Supplement s1, 9–49.Google Scholar
Bosch, L., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2003). Simultaneous bilingualism and the perception of a language-specific vowel contrast in the first year of life. Language and Speech, 46, 217–243.Google Scholar
Bradlow, A. R. (1995). A comparative acoustic study of English and Spanish vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 1916–1924.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchwald, J. S., Guthrie, D., Schwafel, J., Erwin, R. J., & Van Lancker, D. (1994). Influence of language structure on brain-behavior development. Brain & Language, 46, 607–619.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chobert, J., François, C., Velay, J. L., & Besson, M. (2014). Twelve months of active musical training in 8-to-10-year-old children enhances the preattentive processing of syllabic duration and Voice Onset Time. Cerebral Cortex, 24, 956–967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, V. (1995). Multi-Competence and the learning of many languages. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 8, 93–98.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hernandez, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2009). On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don’t. Cognition, 113, 135–149.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cutler, A., Norris, D. G, & Williams, J. N. (1987). A note on the role of phonological expectations in speech segmentation. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 480–487.Google Scholar
Datta, H., Shafer, V. L., Morr, M. L., Kurtzberg, D., & Schwartz, R. G. (2010). Electrophysiological indices of discrimination of long-duration, phonetically similar vowels in children with typical and atypical language development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 757–777.Google Scholar
Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Dupoux, E., & Gout, A. (2000). Electrophysiological correlates of phonological processing: A Cross-linguistic Study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 635–647.Google Scholar
Eimas, P. D. (1963). The relation between identification and discrimination along speech and nonspeech continua. Language Speech, 6, 206–217.Google Scholar
Elman, J. L., Diehl, R. L., & Buchwald, S. E. (1977). Perceptual switching in bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 62, 971–974.Google Scholar
Ferree, T. C., Luu, P. L., Russell, J., & Tucker, D. M. (2001). Scalp-electrode impedance, infection risk, and EEG data quality. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 536–544.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. (1922). The goodness of fit of regression formulae, and the distribution of regression coefficients. Journals of the Royal Statistical Society, 85, 597–612.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. (1945). A new test for 2 × 2 tables. Nature, 156, No. 3961, 388.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1991). Orthographic evidence for the perceptual identification of vowels in Spanish and English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 43, 701–731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W. (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, pp. 233–277. Baltimore, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Birdsong, D., Bialystok, E., Mack, M., Sung, H., & Tsukada, K. (2006). Degree of foreign accent in English sentences produced by Korean children and adults. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 153–175.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O-S., & Jang, S. (1997). The effect of experience on nonnative subjects’ production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437–470.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., & MacKay, I. (2004). Perceiving vowels in a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 1–34.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Munro, M., & Fox, R. (1994). Auditory and categorical effects on cross-language vowel perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 95, 3623–3641.Google Scholar
García-Sierra, A., Diehl, R. L., & Champlin, C. (2009). Testing the double phonemic boundary in bilinguals. Speech Communication, 51, 369–378.Google Scholar
García-Sierra, A., Ramírez-Esparza, N., Silva-Pereyra, J., Siard, J., & Champlin, A. (2012). Assessing the double phonemic representation in bilingual speakers of Spanish and English: An electrophysiological study. Brain & Language, 121, 194–205.Google Scholar
Gomes, H., Molholm, S., Ritter, W., Kurtzberg, D., Cowan, N., & Vaughan, H. G. Jr. (2000). Mismatch negativity in children and adults, and effects of an attended task. Psychophysiology, 37, 807–816.Google Scholar
Gonzales, K., & Lotto, A. J. (2013). A bafri, unpafri: Bilinguals’ pseudoword identifications support language-specific phonetic systems. Psychological Science, 24, 2135–2142.Google Scholar
Gottfried, T. L. (1984). Effects of consonant context on the perception of French vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 12, 91–114.Google Scholar
Green, D., & Swets, J. (1966). Signal Detection Theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G., Clark, J. J., Harada, T., & Wayland, R. P. (2003). Factors affecting stress placement for English nonwords include syllabic structure, lexical class, and stress patterns of phonologically similar words. Language and Speech, 46, 403–427.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G., Harada, T., & Clark, J. J. (2004). Early and late Spanish–English bilinguals’ acquisition of English word stress patterns. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 207–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, R. M. (2001). The sounds of Spanish: Analysis and application. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Healy, A. F., & Repp, B. H. (1982). Context independence and phonetic mediation in categorical perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 8, 68–80.Google Scholar
Hillenbrand, J. M., Getty, L. A., Clark, M. J., & Wheeler, K. (1995). Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 3099–3111.Google Scholar
Hisagi, M., Shafer, V. L., Strange, W., & Sussman, E. (2010). Perception of a Japanese vowel length contrast by Japanese and American English listeners: Behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Brain Research, 1360, 89–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hisagi, M., & Strange, W. (2011). Perception of Japanese temporally-cued contrasts by American English listeners. Language and Speech, 54, 241–264.Google Scholar
Jusczyk, P. W. (1997). The discovery of spoken language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Krashen, S., Long, M., & Scarcella, R. (1979). Age, rate and eventual attainment in second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 13, 573–582. [Reprinted in S. D. Krashen, R. C. Scarcella & M. H. Long (eds.), Child–adult differences in second language acquisition, pp. 161–172. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1982.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraus, N., McGee, T., Carell, T., Zecker, S., Nicol, T., & Koch, D. (1996). Auditory neurophysiologic response and discrimination deficits in children with learning problems. Science, 273, 971–973.Google Scholar
Kraus, N., Micco, A., Koch, D., McGee, T., Carrell, T., Sharma, A., Wiet, R., & Weingarten, C. (1993). The mismatch negativity cortical evoked potential elicited by speech in cochlear-implant users. Hearing Research, 65, 118–124.Google Scholar
Kuhl, P. K., Conboy, B. T., Coffey-Corina, S., Padden, D., Rivera-Gaxiola, M., & Nelson, T. (2008). Phonetic learning as a pathway to language: New data and native language magnet theory expanded (NLM-e). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363, 979–1000.Google Scholar
Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). Biological foundations of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Levy, E. S., & Strange, W. (2008). Perception of French vowels by American English adults with and without French language experience. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 141–157.Google Scholar
Luck, S. (2005). An introduction to the event-related potential technique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mack, M. (1989). Consonant and vowel perception and production: Early English–French bilinguals and English monolinguals. Perception & Psychophisics, 46, 187–200.Google Scholar
MacKain, K. S., Best, C. T., & Strange, W. (1981). Categorical perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 2, 369–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maiste, A. C., Wiens, A. S., Hunt, M. J., Scherg, M., & Picton, T. W. (1995). Event related potentials and the categorical perception of speech sounds. Ear and Hearing, 16, 68–89.Google Scholar
Menning, H., Imaizumi, S., Zwitserlood, P., & Pantev, C. (2002). Plasticity of the human auditory cortex induced by discrimination earning of non-native, mora-timed contrasts of the Japanese language. Learning Memory, 9, 253–267.Google Scholar
Molner, M., Baum, S., Polka, L., Menard, L., & Steinhauer, K. (2009). Automatic auditory discrimination of vowels in simultaneous bilingual and monolingual speakers as measured by the mismatch negativity (MMN). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125, 2754–2754.Google Scholar
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning, 45, 73–97.Google Scholar
Näätänen, R. (1990). The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive functions. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 201–288.Google Scholar
Näätänen, R., Lehtokoski, A., Lennes, M., Cheour, M., Huotilainen, M., Iivonen, A., Vainio, M., Alku, P., Ilmoniemi, R. J., Luuk, A., Allik, J., Sinkkonen, J., & Alho, K. (1997). Language-specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic brain responses. Nature, 385, 432–434.Google Scholar
Näätänen, R., Paavilainen, P., Rinne, T., & Alho, K. (2007). The mismatch negativity (MMN) in basic research of central auditory processing: A review. Clinical Neurophysiology, 118, 2544–2590.Google Scholar
Nenonen, S., Shestakova, A., Huotilainen, M., & Näätänen, R. (2003). Linguistic relevance of duration within the native language determines the accuracy of speech–sound duration processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 16, 492–495.Google Scholar
Nenonen, S., Shestakova, A., Huotilainen, M., & Näätänen, R. (2005). Speech–sound duration processing in a second language is specific to phonetic categories. Brain & Language, 92, 26–32.Google Scholar
Nishi, K., Strange, W., Akahane-Yamada, R., Kubo, R., & Trent-Brown, S. A. (2008). Acoustic and perceptual similarity of Japanese and American English vowels. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 124, 576–588.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nittrouer, S. (1996). The relation between speech perception and phonemic awareness: Evidence from low-SES children and children with chronic OM. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 1059–1070.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nittrouer, S., & Crowther, C. S. (1998). Examining the role of auditory sensitivity in the developmental weighting shift. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 41, 809–818.Google Scholar
Nittrouer, S., Crowther, C. S., & Miller, M. E. (1998). The relative weighting of acoustic properties in the perception of [s]+stop clusters by children and adults. Perception & Psychophysics, 60, 51–64.Google Scholar
Nittrouer, S., & Miller, M. E. (1997). Predicting developmental shifts in perceptual weighting schemes. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2253–2266.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pallier, C., Bosch, L., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (1997). A limit on behavioral plasticity in vowel acquisition. Cognition, 64, B9–17.Google Scholar
Pastore, R., Crawley, E., Berens, M., & Skelly, M. (2003). Non-parametric A¢ and other modern misconceptions about signal detection theory. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 10, 556–569.Google Scholar
Peltola, M. S., Kujala, T., Tuomainen, J., Ek, M., Altonen, O., & Näätänen, R. (2003). Native and foreign vowel discrimination as indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN) response. Neuroscience Letters, 352, 25–28.Google Scholar
Peltola, M. S., Tamminen, H., Lehtola, H., & Aaltonen, O. (2007). Balanced bilinguals have one inter twined phonological system. 15th International Congress of Phonetics Sciences (ICPhS 15), Saarbrücken, p. 5.Google Scholar
Peltola, M. S., Tamminen, H., Salonen, L., Toivonen, H., Kujala, T., & Näätänen, R. (2010). Two languages – one brain. Proceedings of the 3rd ISCA Workshop ExLing 2010, pp. 145–148.Google Scholar
Picton, T. W., Alain, C., Otten, L., Ritter, W., & Achim, A. (2000). Mismatch negativity: Different water in the same river. Audiology and Neuro-Otology, 5, 111–139.Google Scholar
Pisoni, D. B. (1973). Auditory and phonetic memory codes in the discrimination of consonants and vowels. Perception & Psychophysics, 13, 253–260.Google Scholar
Pollack, I., & Norman, D. A. (1964). A non-parametric analysis of recognition experiments. Psychonomic Science, 1, 125–126.Google Scholar
Recasens, D., & Espinosa, A. (2006). Dispersion and variability in Catalan vowels. Speech Communication, 48, 645–666.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritter, W., Sussman, E., Deacon, D., Cowan, N., & Vaughan, H. G. Jr. (1999). Two cognitive systems simultaneously prepared for opposite events. Psychophysiology, 36, 835–839.Google Scholar
Schmidt, A. M., & Flege, J. E. (1996). Speaking rate effects in stops produced by Spanish and English monolinguals and Spanish/English bilinguals. Phonetica, 53, 162–179.Google Scholar
Sebastián-Gallés, N., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., Diego-Balaguer, R., & Díaz, B. (2006). First- and second-language phonological representations in the mental lexicon. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1277–1291.Google Scholar
Shafer, V. L., Morr, M. L., Datta, H., Kurtzberg, D., & Schwartz, R. G. (2005). Neurophysiological indices of speech processing deficits in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences, 17, 1168–1180.Google Scholar
Shafer, V. L., Schwartz, R. G., & Kurtzberg, D. (2004). Language-specific memory traces of consonants in the brain. Cognitive Brain Research, 18, 242–254.Google Scholar
Shafer, V. L., Yu, Y., & Datta, H. (2010). Maturation of electrophysiological mismatch responses (MMR) to vowel contrasts in four to seven-year-old children. Ear and Hearing, 31, 735–745.Google Scholar
Strange, W. (2011). Automatic selective perception (ASP) of first and second language speech: A working model. Journal of Phonetics, 39, 456–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strange, W., & Dittman, S. (1984). Effects of discrimination training on the perception of /r–l/ by Japanese adults learning English. Perception & Psychophysics, 36, 131–145.Google Scholar
Strange, W., & Shafer, V. L. (2008). Speech perception in late second language learners: The re-education of selective perception. In Hansen Edwards, J. G. & Zampini, M. L. (eds.), Phonology and second language acquisition, pp. 153–191. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sundara, M., & Polka, L. (2008). Discrimination of coronal stops by bilingual adults: The timing and nature of language interaction. Cognition, 106, 234–258.Google Scholar
Sussman, E., Winkler, I., Kreuzer, J., Saher, M., Näätänen, R., & Ritter, W. (2002). Temporal integration: Intentional sound discrimination does not modify stimulus-driven processes in auditory event synthesis. Clinical Neurophysiology, 113, 909–920.Google Scholar
Tamminen, H., Peltola, M. S., Toivonen, H., Kujala, T., & Näätänen, R. (2013). Phonological processing differences in bilinguals and monolinguals. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 87, 8–12 Google Scholar
Thornburgh, D. F., & Ryalls, J. H. (1998). Voice onset time in Spanish–English bilinguals: Early versus late learners of English. Journal of Communication Disorder, 31, 215–228.Google Scholar
Weber-Fox, C. M., & Neville, H. J. (1996). Maturational constraints on functional specializations for language processing: ERP and behavioral evidence in bilingual speakers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 231–256.Google Scholar
Werker, J. F., & Curtin, S. (2005). PRIMIR: A developmental framework of infant speech processing. Language Learning and Development, 1, 197–234.Google Scholar
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, 49–63.Google Scholar
Williams, L. (1977). The perception of stop consonant voicing by Spanish–English bilinguals. Perception & Psychophysics, 21, 289–297.Google Scholar
Winkler, I., Kujaha, T., Alku, P., & Näätänen, R. (2003). Language context and phonetic change detection. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 833–844.Google Scholar
Winkler, I., Kujala, T., Tiitinen, H., Sivonen, P., Alku, P., Lehtokoski, A., Czigler, I., Csépe, V., Ilmoniemi, R. J., & Näätänen, R. (1999a). Brain responses reveal the learning of foreign language phonemes. Psychophysiology, 36, 638–642.Google Scholar
Winkler, I., Lehtokoski, A., Alku, P., Vainio, M., Czigler, I., Csépe, V., Aaltonen, O., Raimo, I., Alho, K., Lang, A. H., Iivonen, A., & Näätänen, R. (1999b). Pre-attentive detection of vowel contrasts utilizes both phonetic and auditory memory representations. Cognitive Brain Research, 7, 357–369.Google Scholar
Yeni-Komshian, G. H., Flege, J. E., & Liu, S. (2000). Pronunciation proficiency in the first and second languages of Korean–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 131–149.Google Scholar
Zevin, J. D., Datta, H., Maurer, U., Rosania, K. A., & McCandliss, B. D. (2010). Native language experience influences the topography of the mismatch negativity to speech. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4:212. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2010.00212.Google Scholar