Abstract Speakers of pitch-accent languages, such as Japanese, are often overly sensitive to pitch cues, which may affect second language (L2) suprasegmental learning. The present study examined whether sensitivity to non-pitch cues (i.e., second formant, duration and amplitude rise time) is associated with more accurate perception of L2 English word stress following phonetic training. A total of 115 Japanese English-as-a-foreign-language learners were assessed on pitch and non-pitch dimensions of auditory processing and assigned to experimental or control groups. The experimental groups received perceptual phonetic training on English word stress, cued not only by pitch, but also by non-pitch information (duration, intensity and vowel quality). Results showed that brief training significantly enhanced prosodic perception of trained words. Importantly, auditory processing exhibited dimension-specific effects: more precise processing of non-pitch cues was associated with superior perception and greater training gains, whereas pitch sensitivity was unrelated to learning outcomes.
Hosaka et al. (Wed,) studied this question.