Investigating The Lexical Support In Non-Native English Speakers Using The Phonemic Restoration Paradigm

Samuel and Frost (2015) investigated the differences between native and non-native English speakers’ lexical influence in speech perception. Using the selective adaptation method, the study showed that lexical support was weaker in less language proficient non-native speakers than native speakers; however, lexical support became stronger in more proficient non-native speakers. The present study investigated the lexical support in speech perception between native and non-native English speakers. Unlike the method used by Samuel and Frost (2015), the present study used the phonemic restoration paradigm. The benefit of using this method is to investigate the difference between native and non-native speakers in perceptually restoring missing phonemes. It was hypothesized that native speakers will show a higher phonemic restoration effect than non-native speakers, as well as greater sensitivity to the phoneme position in a word. In the current study, a group of native speakers and a group of non-native speakers participated in a phonemic restoration task. Both groups were presented with four-syllable stimuli words with one phoneme either replaced with white noise (replacement condition), or white noise added on that phoneme (added condition) in either the third syllable or the forth syllable, followed by an intact version of the same word. Participants rated the degradation of the manipulated word compared to its intact version. Results showed that both native and non-native speakers rated the added versions of the word more similar to the intact version than the replaced version. In addition, both native and non-native speakers rated the manipulated (i.e., added or replaced) versions of the word more similar to the intact version when the manipulated phoneme was in the fourth syllable than when the manipulated phoneme was in the third syllable. However, non-native speakers rated the replaced versions of manipulated words as similar to the intact versions as the native English speakers.