Dr. Hung-Shao Cheng
Postdoctoral Researcher at Speech Motor Neuroscience Group
Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Examining Effects of Elicitation Modality on Learning to Produce Novel Sound Sequences
Recent studies have consistently demonstrated that adult speakers can learn to be better at producing novel sound sequences, such as non-native onset clusters (e.g., GDEEMOO) in a practice-based motor learning paradigm. While each learner’s speech responses are typically elicited following both auditory and orthographic models in this paradigm, how this elicitation approach contributes to non-native cluster learning remains incompletely understood. Motived by the fact that speakers also face difficulty in perceiving the non-native clusters accurately, in this presentation, I will discuss an ongoing study that examined the extent to which learning to produce non-native clusters is impacted by the presence of auditory models in the production training task. Preliminary results suggest that presence of auditory models is beneficiary for learning to produce non-native clusters in the practice-based motor learning paradigm. The effect of auditory models on learning can be modulated by each learner’s baseline perceptual ability. Moreover, the presence versus absence of auditory models might engage in different learning modes that drive the observed production improvement.