This study examines the putative benefits of explicit phonetic instruction, high variability
phonetic training, and their effects on adult nonnative speakers' Mandarin tone productions …

Contrary to studies on speech learning of consonants and vowels, the issue of individual
variability is less well understood in the learning of lexical tones. Whereas existing studies …

Category learning is fundamental to cognition, but little is known about how it proceeds in
real-world environments when learners do not have instructions to search for category …

Multiple lines of research have developed training approaches that foster category learning,
with important translational implications for education. Increasing exemplar variability …

Purpose: Developmental dyslexia is proposed to involve selective procedural memory
deficits with intact declarative memory. Recent research in the domain of category learning …

Perceptual learning reflects experience-driven improvements in the ability to detect changes
in stimulus characteristics. The time course for perceptual learning overlaps with that for …

Humans constantly use their senses to categorize stimuli in their environment. They develop
categories for stimuli when they are young and constantly add to existing categories and …

Blocked practice outperforms random practice in sports and musical training. This study
examines whether the principle of blocked practice and random practice applies to …

Mandarin Chinese tones are notoriously difficult for second language (L2) learners.
Previous research focuses on tone training methods that can help learners produce …

1. Background The Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Ph. D. program, housed in the
Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), was established in …