Perception of voicing in the absence of native voicing experience

50 years of speech perception research provide a rich literature on cross-and second language (L2) perception of stop consonant contrasts such as /p b/, /t d/, and /k g/ which differ systematically in the relative timing of oral stop release and the onset of vocal fold vibration (voice onset time: VOT). This research has focused primarily on two observations: 1) that nonnative listeners automatically use their native VOT contrast boundary in an unfamiliar language, irrespective of whether this language shares the boundary or not, and 2) that even highly proficient L2 language users often perceive L2 VOT-based contrasts in a way that is consistent with their L1, even after decades of L2 acquisition. No work has, hitherto, examined VOT-based contrast discrimination by L1 speakers of languages without any VOT-based stop contrast. In the following, we present two studies of speakers in such a scenario, showing that even extensive L2 experience is insufficient for L2 learners without native (L1) voicing experience to acquire such a distinction.