The effects of cross-modal input when learning non-native sounds is explored in a study with 5-year-old L1 Catalan/Spanish children tested on their perception (AX task) abilities with respect of the /æ-?/ vowel contrast (eg. 'cat' - 'cut'). Results show that while audiovisual tactile input was not detrimental for learning, it was not significantly more beneficial than audio-only or audio-visual either.
Previous research shows that infants and children (as well as adults) benefit from audio-visual stimuli when acquiring non-native phonological categories. Yet research on the multimodal nature of language learning has disregarded one type of potential relevant information: tactile input. The present study aims at exploring if tactile lip-reading is also a relevant source of phonological information that can contribute significantly to children's acquisition of L2 contrasts. A total of 66 L1 Catalan/Spanish 5-year-old children were tested on their perception (AX task) abilities with respect of the /æ-ÊŒ/ vowel contrast (eg. 'cat' - 'cut'), which is non-existing in their L1. Children then received 3 training sessions in 3 distinct conditions (between-subjects): Audio-Only (repeating English native speaker's production of the target items), Audio-Visual (repeating these target items while looking at themselves in a mirror), or Audio-Visual-Tactile (repeating target items while looking at themselves in a mirror and touching their own lip movements with their fingers). Finally, their perceptive abilities were evaluated again as in a post-test. The results show that the role of Audio-Visual-Tactile input, while not detrimental for learning, was not crucial for learning with this population. Results are discussed in relation to cognitive overload when dealing with multimodal input and the experiment design.
