Pallier, C., Sebastian, N., Dupoux, E., Christophe, A.,& Mehler, J. (1998)
Perceptual adjustment to time-compressed speech: A cross-linguistic study
Memory and Cognition, 26, 844--851. 

Abstract 

Previous research has shown that when hearers listen to artificially
speeded speech, their performance improves over the course of 10-15
sentences, as if their perceptual system was "adapting" to these fast rates
of speech. In this paper, we further investigate the mechanisms that are
responsible for such effects. In Experiment 1 we report that, for bilingual
speakers of Catalan and Spanish, exposure to compressed sentences in either
language improves performance on sentences in the other language.
Experiment 2 reports that Catalan/Spanish transfer of performance occurs
even in monolingual speakers of Spanish who do not understand Catalan. In
Experiment 3, we study another pair of languages, namely English and
French, and report no transfer of adaptation between these two languages
for English-French bilinguals. Experiment 4, with monolingual English
speakers, assesses transfer of adaptation from French, Dutch and English
towards English. Here we find that there is no adaptation from French, and
intermediate adaptation from Dutch.  We discuss the locus of adaptation to
compressed speech and relate our findings to other cross-linguistic studies
in speech perception.