A speech recognition system is subjected to the speech of non-native speakers, using both native and non-native acoustic phone models. The problems involved with the mapping of phoneset from the nonnative to native language are investigated, and a detailed analysis of phone confusions is made. For Dutch speakers, British English acoustic models give the best word recognition results.

This paper aims to compare transcription agreement on nonnative English speech corpus spoken by Korean learners between native and non-native annotators. Ten non-native annotators and three native annotators participate in the transcription of 608 sentences. All annotators are provided with forced-aligned phone sequences, which are to be corrected in case when they are realized differently. The...

By the end of their first year of life, infants have become experts in discriminating the sounds of their native language, while they have lost the ability to discriminate non-native contrasts. This type of phonetic learning is referred to as perceptual attunement. In the present study, we investigated the emergence of a context-dependent form of perceptual attunement in infancy. Indeed, some n...

Public perception is a key factor influencing current conservation policy. Therefore, it is important to determine the influence of the public, end-users and scientists on the prioritisation of conservation issues and the direct implications for policy makers. Here, we assessed public attitudes and the perception of conservation managers to five non-native species in the UK, with these suppleme...

BACKGROUND Dietary acculturation may contribute to the increased burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in diasporic populations of African ancestry. OBJECTIVE To assess nutritional composition and the contribution that traditional foods make to the diets of native and UK-dwelling Ghanaian adults. DESIGN An observational study of Ghanaian adults living in Accra (n=26) and London (n=57) ...

Six experiments using the headturn preference procedure investigated 5-month-old American infants’ ability to discriminate languages. The impetus for the present study was a report that newborns discriminate languages across, but not within, rhythmic classes (Nazzi et al., 1998). Two experiments verified that at 5 months, infants still discriminate pairs of languages from different rhythmic cla...

BACKGROUND Black race affords some protection from retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), but more ROP was previously found in another darkly pigmented race, the Alaskan natives. DESIGN From fall 1989 through summer 2003, all Alaskan infants with a birth weight of 1500 g or less were examined, documenting mother's stated race, prenatal care, and neonatal intensive care unit course. RESULTS Retin...