The role of attention in perceptual learning : an exploratory study

The present experiment is part of a project studying the control of perception and production of nonnative speech sounds. The issue we address is whether the categorization of unfamiliar speech sounds can be influenced by orienting the subjects' attention. We created a continuum of [ta]-like syllables that we subdivided in three categories. The subjects, who are French-speaking people, were unfamiliar with two categories out of three. They were administered a categorization task in which they had to classify each sound in the appropriate category. Attention was directed by first providing instructions that highlighted the relevant phonetic cue(s) to determine the appropriate category and secondly by providing feedback after each response. Results showed a strong positive effect of the feedback. At the end of the experiment subjects provided with feedback performed better than subjects without feedback. Furthermore, when feedback was given, performance improved during the course of the experiment. Regarding the effect of the instructions, the more informative they were, the more beneficial they seemed. These exploratory data confirm the role of feedback in perceptual learning and suggest the possibility of influencing categorization by focusing attention on specific acoustic cues, therefore making a step towards a better understanding of language processing.