Transfer of sensorimotor learning reveals phoneme representations in preliterate children.

Reading acquisition is strongly intertwined with phoneme awareness that relies on implicit phoneme representations. We asked whether phoneme representations emerge before literacy. We recruited two groups of children, 4 to 5-year-old preschoolers (N = 29) and 7 to 8-year-old schoolchildren (N = 24), whose phonological awareness was evaluated, and one adult control group (N = 17). We altered speakers' auditory feedback in real time to elicit persisting pronunciation changes, referred to as auditory-motor adaptation or learning. Assessing the transfer of learning at phoneme level enabled us to investigate the developmental time-course of phoneme representations. Significant transfer at phoneme level occurred in preschoolers, as well as schoolchildren and adults. In addition, we found a relationship between auditory-motor adaptation and phonological awareness in both groups of children. Overall, these results suggest that phoneme representations emerge before literacy acquisition, and that these sensorimotor representations may set the ground for phonological awareness.

Transfer of Learning: What Does It Tell Us About Speech Production Units?

Purpose: Words, syllables, and phonemes have each been regarded as basic encoding units of speech production in various psycholinguistic models. The present article investigates the role of each unit in the interface with speech articulation, using a paradigm from motor control research. Method: Seventy-six native speakers of French were trained to change their production of /be/ in response to an auditory feedback perturbation (auditory-motor learning). We then assessed the magnitude of learning transfer from /be/ to the syllables in 2 pseudowords (/bepe/ and /pebe/) and 1 real word (/bebe/) as well as the aftereffect on the same utterance (/be/) with a between-subjects design. This made it possible to contrast the amplitude of transfer at the levels of the utterance, the syllable, and the phoneme, depending on the position in the word. Linear mixed models allowed us to study the amplitude as well as the dynamics of the transfer and the aftereffect over trials. Results: Transfer from the training utterance /be/ was observed for all vowels of the test utterances but was larger to the syllable /be/ than to the syllable /pe/ at word-initial position and larger to the 1st syllable than to the 2nd syllable in the utterance. Conclusions: Our study suggests that words, syllables, and phonemes may all contribute to the definition of speech motor commands. In addition, the observation of a serial order effect raises new questions related to the connection between psycholinguistic models and speech motor control approaches.