Training listeners to perceive novel phonetic categories: How do we know what is learned?

Logan et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 874–886 (1991)] carried out a perceptual learning experiment in which Japanese listeners were trained to identify English words containing /r/ and /l/. Pruitt [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 94 (1993)] has criticized several aspects of the procedures and conclusions. First, he argues that the lack of appropriate control groups make interpretation of the results problematic. Second, he asserts that the generalization test was methodologically flawed. Although Pruitt raises some important issues that are worth pursuing in future research, it is argued that the methodology that was employed and the conclusions that were drawn were valid.