This study investigated the effect of cross-linguistic overlap in L1 and L2 auditory recognition of Spanish–English cognates. The study examined the correlation between objective and subjective measures of overlap and analyzed how these measures predict patterns in auditory recognition. 62 Spanish-speaking learners of English and 63 English-speaking learners of Spanish completed two auditory lexical decision tasks in Spanish and English and a rating task, where they rated the perceived phonological similarity of cognates. The results revealed moderate correlations between subjective and objective measures of overlap. While orthographic overlap had no effect, increased phonological overlap facilitated recognition in L1 and L2 Spanish and English and had larger effects in L2 recognition. Perceived similarity was the best predictor among the measures of overlap. The findings support models suggesting that cross-linguistic co-activation is facilitated by increased form similarity and studies reporting modality dependent effects of cross-linguistic form overlap in lexical recognition.

Extending the paradigm in L1 acquisition, scholars have begun to investigate whether participants’ domain-general ability to represent, encode, and integrate spectral and temporal dimensions of sounds (i.e., auditory processing) could be a potential determinant of the outcomes of post-pubertal L2 speech learning. The current study set out to test the hypothesis that auditory processing makes a unique contribution to L2 speech acquisition, for 70 Japanese classroom learners of English with different levels of L2 proficiency when biographical backgrounds (length of instruction and immersion) and memory abilities (working, declarative, and procedural memory) are controlled for. Auditory processing loaded onto modality-general capacities to represent and incorporate anchor stimuli (relative to target stimuli) into long-term memory in an implicit fashion, but dissociated from explicit abilities to remember, associate, and elaborate sensory information. Auditory processing explained a small-to-medium amount of variance in L2 speech learning, even after the other potentially confounding variables were statistically factored out.

Recently, scholars have begun to explore the hypothesis that individual differences in domain-general auditory perception, which has been identified as an anchor of L1 acquisition, could explain some variance in postpubertal L2 learners’ segmental and suprasegmental learning in immersive settings. The current study set out to examine the generalizability of the topic to the acquisition of higher-level linguistic production skills—that is the appropriate use of diverse, rich, and abstract vocabulary. The speech of 100 Polish-English bilinguals was elicited using an interview task, submitted to corpus-/rater-based linguistic analyses, and linked to their ability to discriminate sounds based on individual acoustic dimensions (pitch, duration, and amplitude). According to the results, those who attained more advanced L2 lexical proficiency demonstrated not only more relevant experience (extensive immersion and earlier age of arrival), but also more precise auditory perception ability.

In this study, we propose a hypothesis that domain-general auditory processing, a perceptual–cognitive anchor of first language (L1) acquisition, can serve as an important deciding factor for successful postpubertal second language (L2) pronunciation learning. To examine this hypothesis, samples of spontaneous speech were elicited from a total of 30 L1 Chinese L2 English learners at two points (outset and endpoint) during an 8-month study-abroad period in the United Kingdom. The participants were tested on three different components of auditory processing ability (formant, pitch, and duration discrimination) using behavioral instruments. The auditory processing scores were then linked to the segmental, prosodic, and fluency dimensions of their L2 pronunciation proficiency development throughout the project. Overall, most learners’ speech became smoother, faster, and more fluent (fewer pauses, faster articulation rate, and more optimal perceived tempo). Certain learners with high-level auditory processing ability (more precise formant discrimination) appeared to further attain more correct pronunciation of individual sounds and words (greater segmental and word stress accuracy), leading to more advanced L2 phonological skills (fluent and accurate). The findings suggest that auditory processing abilities can be a root of language learning throughout the life span and may apply to the initial- to midphase of naturalistic L2 pronunciation learning in adulthood.

Although receptive priming has long been used as a way to examine lexical access in adults, few studies have applied this method to children and rarely in an auditory modality. We compared auditory associative priming in children and adults. A testing battery and a Lexical Decision (LD) task was administered to 42 adults and 27 children (8;1–10;11 years-old) from Spain. They listened to Spanish word pairs (semantically related/unrelated word pairs and word-pseudoword pairs), and tone pairs. Then participants pressed one key for word pairs, and another for pairs with a word and a pseudoword. They also had to press the two keys alternatively for tone pairs as a basic auditory control. Both groups of participants, children and adults, exhibited semantic priming, with significantly faster Reaction Times (RTs) to semantically related word pairs than to unrelated pairs and to the two word-pseudoword sets. The priming effect was twice as large in the adults compared to children, and the children (not the adults) were significantly slower in their response to word-pseudoword pairs than to the unrelated word pairs. Moreover, accuracy was somewhat higher in adults than children for each word pair type, but especially in the word-pseudoword pairs. As expected, children were significantly slower than adults in the RTs for all stimulus types, and their RTs decreased significantly from 8 to 10 years of age and they also decreased in relation to some of their language abilities development (e.g., relative clauses comprehension). In both age groups, the Reaction Time average for tone pairs was lower than for speech pairs, but only all adults obtained 100% accuracy (which was slightly lower in children). Auditory processing and semantic networks are still developing in 8-10 year old children.

This article examines the role of attention and automaticity in auditory processing as revealed by event-related potential (ERP) research. An ERP component called the mismatch negativity, generated by the brain's automatic response to changes in repetitive auditory input, reveals that physical features of auditory stimuli are fully processed whether or not they are attended. It also suggests that there exist precise neuronal representations of the physical features of recent auditory stimuli, perhaps the traces underlying acoustic sensory (“echoic”) memory. A mechanism of passive attention switching in response to changes in repetitive input is also implicated.

Conscious perception of discrete acoustic stimuli might be mediated by some of the mechanisms underlying another ERP component (NI), one sensitive to stimulus onset and offset. Frequent passive attentional shifts might accountforthe effect cognitive psychologists describe as “the breakthrough of the unattended” (Broadbent 1982), that is, that even unattended stimuli may be semantically processed, without assuming automatic semantic processing or late selection in selective attention.

The processing negativity supports the early-selection theory and may arise from a mechanism for selectively attending to stimuli defined by certain features. This stimulus selection occurs in the form ofa matching process in which each input is compared with the “attentional trace,” a voluntarily maintained representation of the task-relevant features of the stimulus to be attended. The attentional mechanism described might underlie the stimulus-set mode of attention proposed by Broadbent. Finally, a model of automatic and attentional processing in audition is proposed that is based mainly on the aforementioned ERP components and some other physiological measures.

Recent investigations have distinguished between ophthalmokinetic and melokinetic factors of unilateral neglect. The aim of our study was to investigate the possible dissociation between melokinetic (premotor) and perceptual factors, avoiding any overt oculokinctic components. We asked four blindfolded left neglect patients to set a dichotic sound in central position, by moving a handle controlling the difference of intensity between the sounds delivered to the left and to the right cars. Two conflicting conditions were used. In the congruent condition, the sound moved in the same direction as the hand movement; in the noncongruent condition, it moved in the opposite direction. One patient performed as if suffering from melokinetic neglect, and another as if suffering from perceptual neglect. The behavior of the other two subjects did not lend itself to a clearcut interpretation. (JINS, 1996, 2, 419–425.)

Auditory processing is an essential communicative function. However, some children do not develop language and learning as effectively as expected. Educators have been aware of this deficiency in listening and related communicative skills but are not able to identify the underlying specific deficit or set of deficits. A specialist audiology assessment can help to identify specific auditory processing deficits. Appropriate educational objectives can flow from such a diagnosis.

This study was designed to investigate early auditory memory and its possible contribution to an auditory processing deficit shown by some children with language impairment. Ten children with language impairment and 10 age-matched controls participated in a series of simultaneous and backward masking tasks. The same backward masking stimulus was then used to elicit a mismatch negativity response. In the behavioral conditions, children in the language impairment group had significantly higher (poorer) signal thresholds than their nonimpaired controls in backward masking, but their thresholds in simultaneous masking were not significantly different. In the mismatch-negativity conditions, latency was prolonged and the amplitude was diminished in the children with language impairment. Taken together, these psychoacoustic and electrophysiological data suggest that in a group of children with language impairment, underlying the nonsensory language disorder, there is a neurophysiological impairment in auditory memory for complex, nonlinguistic sounds.

Event-related brain potentials in response to harmonically inappropriate chords were compared for musical experts and novices. Similar to previous studies, these chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN). The amplitude of the ERAN was clearly larger for musical experts than for novices, presumably because experts had more specific musical expectancies than novices. Chords with a physically deviant timbre elicited a mismatch negativity that did not differentiate the groups, indicating that the larger ERAN in experts was not due to a general enhanced auditory sensitivity. The ERAN reflects fast and automatic neural mechanisms that process complex musical (music-syntactic) irregularities, and the present results indicate that these mechanisms can be modulated by expertise.

During listening to a musical piece, unexpected harmonies may evoke brain responses that are reflected electrically as an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) and a late frontal negativity (N5). In the present study we demonstrate that these components of the event-related potential can be evoked preattentively, that is, even when a musical stimulus is ignored. Both ERAN and N5 differed in amplitude as a function of music-theoretical principles. Participants had no special musical expertise; results thus provide evidence for an automatic processing of musical information in “nonmusicians.”

Neural representations for abstract features of auditory stimuli were studied by presenting reading subjects with stimulus blocks composed of pairs of two closely spaced tones. There were frequent ascending standard pairs (i.e., the second tone was higher in frequency than the first tone) and occasional descending deviant pairs. Both types of pairs varied randomly over a wide frequency range. In separate blocks, the tones forming a pair were presented either to the same ear or to opposite ears. The deviant pairs elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN) in all conditions, which indicates that the brain can automatically extract and represent an abstract invariant feature (rise or fall) of stimulation above the point of binaural convergence and detect violations against it. Poor behavioral performance in an active discrimination task suggested that conscious discrimination processes can only partially use the outcome of the preattentive discrimination processes reflected by the MMN.