Explaining the native-language listening advantage by charting neural response and perceptual adaptation across languages – but within individuals

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Listening to the native language is easier than listening to a second language. This advantage is especially clear in recognising voices and in listening in noise. Identifying talkers was recently shown to involve rapid perceptual adjustment to their speech sounds, and successful listening in noise to involve adjustment of word recognition processes. This project tests the prediction that listeners more efficiently deploy each type of adjustment in the native than in a second language, by comparing native with second language phonetic and lexical processing within individuals. Further, a novel fMRI method in which target brain regions are defined functionally in each subject will identify the neural basis of the native listening advantage.