Attention Control and Inhibition Influence Phonological Development in a Second Language

Abstract

This study investigated the role of attention control and inhibition in L2 learners’ phonological processing. Participants were 16 L1‐Spanish/L2‐English learners, and 18 L1-English/L2‐Spanish learners. We measured attention and inhibition through a novel speech‐based attention‐switching task and a retrieval‐induced inhibition task. L2 phonology (perception and production) was assessed through a speeded ABX categorization task and a delayed sentence repetition task. We used a measure of L2 vocabulary size to partial out L2 proficiency effects. A more efficient attention control was associated with more accurate performance in ABX (for the L2‐English learners), and higher inhibitory skill was related to higher ABX accuracy in both learner groups. No clear relationship emerged with the production scores. These results suggest that a more efficient attention control and inhibitory skill enhance the processing of phonologically relevant acoustic information in the L2 input and may lead to more accurate L2 speech perception and production.