Effects of audio‐visual training on the identification of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers

Two groups of Japanese speakers were trained to identify AE /r/ and /l/ using two different types of training: audio visual and auditory only. In audiovisual training, a movie of the talker’s face was presented together with the auditory stimuli, whereas only auditory stimuli were presented in audio‐only training. Improvement in /r/–/l/ identification from pretest to post‐test on three types of tests (audio‐only, visual only and audiovisual) did not differ substantially across the two training groups. Interestingly, the audio‐only group showed improved identification in the visual‐only tests, suggesting that training in the auditory domain transferred to the visual domain. A McGurk‐type test using /r/ and /l/ stimuli with conflicting audio and visual information was also conducted. Identification accuracies on this test showed a greater effect of conflicting visual information at post‐test than at pretest for the audio–visual training group, but not for the audio‐only training group, suggesting that audio‐visual training facilitated integration of auditory and visual information. Taken together, these results suggest that the internal representation of second‐language phonetic categories incorporates both auditory and visual information. Implications for theories of perceptual learning and phonological development will be discussed.