The effect of multilingualism on phonetic perceptual flexibility

ABSTRACT This research was designed to explore whether maintenance of the ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions requires specific linguistic/perceptual experience, or whether broadened but nonrelevant linguistic experience can result in generalized perceptual flexibility. To explore this question, bilingual and trilingual adult subjects were compared to monolingual English adults on their ability to discriminate phonetic distinctions that are not used in (any of) their native language(s). Results suggest that broadened, nonspecific linguistic experience does not contribute to increased perceptual flexibility.

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