Figure 1. Coarse schematic models of speech perception illustrating the fundamental difference between auditory and motor theories of speech perception. (a) Schematic of an auditory theory. Acoustic speech input activates Although the main goal of our paper [1] was to argue against mirror neurons as a possible instantiation of the Motor Theory of speech, we also presented evidence in support fo...

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is reaching an up most position in the pedagogical field of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). The present study was carried out to study the effect of using phonetic websites on Iranian EFL students’ pronunciation and knowledge of phonemic symbols. Participants of the study included 30 EFL female pre-intermediate students studyin...

Younger learners are better at acquiring second-language (L2) phoneme contrasts than older learners, but this general correlation between age and learning ability is often confounded with factors such as how late use their L2 in daily life. The present study trained Japanese speakers across a wide range (young children through adults) on English /r/-/l/, using computer-based high variability ph...

This paper investigates the interaction between cultural evolution and biological evolution in the emergence of phonemic coding in speech. It is observed that our nearest relatives, the primates, use holistic utterances, whereas humans use phonemic utterances. It can therefore be argued that our last common ancestor used holistic utterances and that these must have evolved into phonemic utteran...

The study described in this paper is an attempt to answer the question ‘Which aspect of speech perception is altered by linguistic experience and how this alteration is done?’ As Strange and Jenkins stated, “[t]he knowledge of a language possessed by a normal adult is a product of many years of exposure to a specific language environment” (1978: 125). Therefore, if linguistic knowledge influenc...

Listening to speech modulates activity in human motor cortex. It is unclear, however, whether the motor cortex has an essential role in speech perception. Here, we aimed to determine whether the motor representations of articulators contribute to categorical perception of speech sounds. Categorization of continuously variable acoustic signals into discrete phonemes is a fundamental feature of s...