Asymmetries in Perceptual Adjustments to Non-Canonical Pronunciations

This paper examines two plausible mechanisms supporting sound category adaptation: directional shifts towards the novel pronunciation or a general relaxation of criteria. Focusing on asymmetries in adaptation to voicing patterns English coronal fricatives, we suggest that typology synchronic experience affect adaptation. A corpus study fricative substitution confirmed North American listeners are more likely be exposed devoiced /z/ than voiced /s/. Across perceptual experiments, test conditions heard naturally produced /s/ critical items within sentences, while control were identical sentences with canonical pronunciations. Perceptual was tested via lexical decision test, /s/, as well alveopalatalized pronunciation, determine whether targeted direction variant reflected relaxation. Results indicate there and word-specific for /z/-devoicing no evidence generalization. Conversely, /s/-voicing generalizing eliciting These results underscore role experiences, support an evaluation stage learning, where assess update representation.