Cognitive control skills and speech perception after short‐term second language experience during infancy

Previous research has linked increasing cognitive abilities to reductions in sensitivity to nonnative phonemes toward the end of the first year, but found no association between cognitive skills and native speech perception (Conboy et al., 2006; Lalonde & Werker, 1995). The present study examined cognitive abilities and brain activity to second‐language (L2) phoneme contrasts in infants who had short‐term experience with the L2: we predicted better cognitive skills in infants with better discrimination of the L2 contrast. Seventeen infants from monolingual English homes completed event‐related potential (ERP) speech perception testing and nonlinguistic tasks requiring attentional flexibility, memory, and inhibitory control at 11 months, after twelve Spanish play sessions from 9.5 ‐ 10.5 months. An ERP oddball paradigm assessed discrimination of English and Spanish contrasts (English: voiced /da/ vs. voiceless‐aspirated [tha]; Spanish: prevoiced /da/ vs. voiceless‐unaspirated /ta/). Infants showed broad mi...