Abstract
A computer game for the measurement of auditory discrimination has been developed for people with hearing difficulty, such as those with cohlea implants, unable to use standard tests, such as children, or foreign language learners who do not hear specific distinctions. To evaluate the efficiency of the game, Experiment 1 assessed the categorical perception of a phoneme continuum, /ra/-/la/, using native English speakers (NE) and native Japanese speakers (NJ). NE showed a categorical perception whereas NJ did not. The similarity of phoneme perception between subjects obtained by an analysis of the response latencies recorded during the game was highly correlated with the results obtained by an identification task that is typically used in categorical perception experiments. In Experiment 2, we assessed the effect of increasing the intensity of one of the phonemes along the continuum. NJ's perceptual maps of/ra/-/la/phonemes were sensitive to this intensity change. NE's perceptual maps, on the other hand, were not affected. In Experiment 3, we show that an amplitude randomization of ±5 dB counterbalanced this cross-cultural effect. These results suggest that counterbalancing distracting cues (i.e.,other than the target) in a discrimination task such as this game may be especually useful for non-native or hearing-disabled people. This computer game is also effective in producing perceptual maps of English vowels in children with cochlear implants or hearing aids.
