Learning to recognize foreign speech sounds: Strategies of auditory processing
David R. Lambert · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1979
One can use two fundamentally different strategies to learn to recognize foreign speech sounds: Accept a sound as something new to be learned and form new codes which include accurate detail to represent it [Code Forming (CF) strategy], or assume the sound is a distorted version of something familiar, recognizing the sound immediately by using existing codes and ignoring inaccurate detail [Code Using (CU) strategy]. The language learning environment of the child or of a person in a foreign country encourages the CF strategy, while that of the typical classroom student encourages the CU strategy. Surprisingly, the two strategies result in about the same rate of learning. But they produce different processing capabilities, the CF strategy produces about 90 ms faster encoding; the CU strategy about 45 ms faster memorial comparison. In learning a language, one should use the CF strategy to develop fast encoding speed, while consciously focusing on other aspects of the language. (Reference: dissertation of same title, Pp. 330, 1977, PB-273 161/OGA.) [Work performed at Psychology Department, University of California at San Diego; supported in part by NIH.]