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  • Title: Individual differences in the discrimination of novel speech sounds: effects of sex, temporal processing, musical and cognitive abilities.
    Author: Kempe V, Thoresen JC, Kirk NW, Schaeffler F, Brooks PJ.
    Journal: PLoS One; 2012; 7(11):e48623. PubMed ID: 23139806.
    Abstract:
    This study examined whether rapid temporal auditory processing, verbal working memory capacity, non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, musical ability and prior foreign language experience predicted how well native English speakers (N=120) discriminated Norwegian tonal and vowel contrasts as well as a non-speech analogue of the tonal contrast and a native vowel contrast presented over noise. Results confirmed a male advantage for temporal and tonal processing, and also revealed that temporal processing was associated with both non-verbal intelligence and speech processing. In contrast, effects of musical ability on non-native speech-sound processing and of inhibitory control on vowel discrimination were not mediated by temporal processing. These results suggest that individual differences in non-native speech-sound processing are to some extent determined by temporal auditory processing ability, in which males perform better, but are also determined by a host of other abilities that are deployed flexibly depending on the characteristics of the target sounds.
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