Effects of lexical frequency on the post-exposure magnitude of recalibration in lexically guided perceptual learning: An explorative analysis

Abstract

Listeners use lexical information to guide the mapping between acoustic signals and representations of speech sound. This process is known as perceptual learning and results in recalibration of phonetic categories. The current work examines the effect of lexical frequency of exposure words on the magnitude of recalibration. Results showed comparable levels of perceptual learning for listeners exposed to high-frequency vs low-frequency critical words, in line with empirical findings that suggest that if frequency affects recalibration, such effects may be difficult to detect. These findings warrant further empirical probing and theoretical characterization of the role of lexical frequency in perceptual learning.