Like the production system, the perceptual system can
also learn phonotactic distributions from brief experience.
Onishi, Chambers, and Fisher (2002) presented adults with
syllables that followed artificial constraints, and found that
participants then processed ‘‘legal” syllables more quickly
than ‘‘illegal” ones, thus demonstrating perceptual phonotactic
learning (see also Bernard, 2015; Chambers, Onishi,
& Fisher, 2010, 2011). But can a phonotactic generalization
acquired from perceptual experience be transferred to the
production system? We know that a single phonological
form is easily transferred from perception to production
through imitation. If we hear, but do not say, syllables in
which /f/ is always an onset, will our speech errors obey
that constraint?