Assessing Perceptual Difficulty Across Speech Sound Categories and Contrasts to Optimize Minimal Pair Training.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Utilizing psycholinguistic methods, this article aims to ascertain the perceptual difficulty associated with distinguishing between different speech sound categories and individual contrasts within those categories, with the ultimate goal of informing the use of minimal pair contrasts in perceptual training.

Design

Using eye-tracking in the Visual World Paradigm, adults with normal hearing (N = 30) were presented with an auditory word and were required to identify the matching image from a selection of four options: the target word, two unrelated words, and a minimal pair competitor contrasting with the target word in word-final position in one of four categories (manner, place, voicing, nasality).

Results

We measured fixations to minimal pair competito

SUBMITTER: Hendrickson K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12510373 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature