Previous studies have yielded contradictory results on the relationship between perception and production in second language (L2) phonological processing. We re-examine the relationship between the two modalities both within and across processing levels, addressing several issues regarding methodology and statistical analyses. We focus on the perception and production of the French contrast /u/–/y/ by proficient English-speaking late learners of French. In an experiment with a prelexical perception task (ABX discrimination) and both a prelexical and a lexical production task (pseudoword reading and picture naming), we observe a robust link between perception and production within but not across levels. Moreover, using a clustering analysis we provide evidence that good perception is a prerequisite for good production.

High-Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) has been shown to be effective in improving the perception of the hardest non-native sounds. However, it remains unclear whether such training can enhance phonological processing at the lexical level. The present study tested whether HVPT also improves word recognition. Late French learners of English completed eight online sessions of HVPT on the perception of English word-initial /h/. This sound does not exist in French and has been shown to cause difficulty both at the prelexical (Mah, Goad & Steinhauer, 2016) and the lexical level of processing (Melnik & Peperkamp, 2019). In pretest and posttest participants were administered a prelexical identification task and a lexical decision task. Results demonstrate that after training the learners’ accuracy improved in both tasks. Moreover, these improvements were retained four months after posttest. This is the first evidence that short training can enhance not only prelexical perception, but also word recognition.

French listeners have difficulty perceiving /h/, and as L2 speakers they frequently omit /h/ in English words. This study investigated their processing of English /h/-initial words. Participants performed a lexical decision task on words and nonwords, where the nonwords were created from /h/-initial and vowel-initial words by removing or adding /h/, respectively. The results mirrored the production pattern, with more misses on /h/-initial words (e.g., holiday) and more false alarms on vowel-initial nonwords (e.g., usband). These results are interpreted in light of previous research on asymmetries in L2 lexical access.

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods aim at dealing with certain limitations of human information processing. However, cognitive biases, which are discrepancies of human behavior from the behavior of perfectly rational agents, might persist even when MCDM methods are used. In this article, we focus on two among the most common biases—framing and loss aversion. We test whether these cognitive biases can influence in a predictable way both the criteria weights elicited using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the final ranking of alternatives obtained with the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In a controlled experiment we presented two groups of participants with a multi-criteria problem and found that people make different decisions when presented with different but objectively equivalent descriptions (i.e., frames) of the same criteria. Specifically, the results show that framing and loss aversion influenced the responses of decision makers during pairwise comparisons, which in turn caused the rank reversal of criteria weights across groups and resulted in the choice of a different best alternative. We discuss our findings in light of Prospect Theory and show that the particular framing of criteria can influence the outcomes of MCDM in a predictable way. We outline implications for MCDM methodology and highlight possible debiasing techniques.

Humans tend to systematically underestimate exponential growth and perceive it in linear terms, which can have severe consequences in a variety of fields. Recent studies attempted to examine the origins of this bias and to mitigate it by using the logarithmic vs. the linear scale in graphical representations. However, they yielded conflicting results as to which scale induces more perceptual errors. In the current study, in an experiment with a short educational intervention, we further examine the factors modulating the exponential bias in graphs and suggest a theoretical explanation for our findings. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that each of the scales can induce misperceptions in a particular context. In addition to this, we explore the effect of mathematical education by testing two groups of participants (with a background in humanities vs. formal sciences). The results of this study confirm that when used in an inadequate context, these scales can have a dramatic effect on the interpretation of visualizations representing exponential growth. In particular, while the log scale leads to more errors in graph description tasks, the linear scale misleads people when they have to make predictions on the future trajectory of exponential growth. The second part of the study revealed that the difficulties with both scales can be reduced by means of a short educational intervention. Importantly, while no difference between participants groups was observed prior to the intervention, participants with a better mathematical education showed a stronger learning effect at posttest. The findings of this study are discussed in light of a dual-process model.

Intonation is a complex suprasegmental phenomenon essential for speech processing. However, it is still largely understudied, especially in the case of under-resourced languages, such as Lithuanian. The current paper focuses on intonation in Lithuanian, a Baltic pitch-accent language with free stress and tonal variations on accented heavy syllables. Due to historical circumstances, the description and analysis of Lithuanian intonation were carried out within different theoretical frameworks and in several languages, which makes them hardly accessible to the international research community. This paper is the first attempt to gather research on Lithuanian intonation from both the Lithuanian and the Western traditions, the structuralist and generativist points of view, and the linguistic and modelling perspectives. The paper identifies issues in existing research that require special attention and proposes directions for future investigations both in linguistics and modelling.