US, Oct. 14 -- People who are better at noticing fine details in sound - known as auditory precision - can master the pronunciation of new languages faster and more accurately than other learners, a new study finds.

Even when hearing a human voice, some people's brains do not immediately treat new sounds as 'language', instead they understand them as unfamiliar acoustic signals. This ability may be one of the keys to successfully mastering pronunciation of a new language.

Researchers from UCL and Tohoku University measured the auditory precision of 67 Japanese learners of English by measuring their ability to detect slight acoustic differences, such as changes in pitch, length and tone, in non-speech sounds.

They then used functional...