On the relationship between native and non-native speech perception and speech production

Models of speech perception differ in the nature of the relationship between speech perception and production. Whether speech perception and production processes are based on a common representations ̶ the articulatory gesture ̶ or speech perception fundamentally operates on the acoustic code is highly debated. In three experimental studies, we investigated the nature of the relationship between speech perception and production. In the first study we found an active role of the speech production system in speech perception, even when listening to unfamiliar phonemes. In the second study we found no influence of a somatosensory manipulation applied to an articulator in passive speech perception. In the third study we showed that speech perception and production abilities are tightly related across phonological processes (sub-lexical and lexical) and participants’ languages (native ̶ L1 ̶and second language ̶ L2 ̶). The results suggest that speech perception and production are intimately linked.