Effects of error experience when learning to simulate hypernasality

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of error experience on the acquisition of hypernasal speech.
Method: Twenty-eight healthy participants were asked to simulate hypernasality in either an errorless learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was limited) or an errorful learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was not limited). The nasality level of the participants' speech was measured with a nasometer and reflected by nasalance scores (in percentages). Errorless learners practiced producing hypernasal speech with a threshold nasalance score of 10% at the beginning, gradually increasing to a threshold of 50% at the end. The same set of threshold targets were presented to errorful learners but in a reversed order. Errors were defined by the proportion of speech with a nasalance score below the threshold. A retention test and a transfer test were administered.
Results: Relative to errorful learners, errorless learners displayed fewer errors and a higher mean nasalance score during acquisition. Furthermore, errorless learners outperformed errorful learners in both retention and transfer tests.
Conclusion: The results suggest that errorless learning is more effective than errorful learning in acquiring a novel speech motor task that involves manipulation of the nasality level of speech. Copyright © 2013 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.