Phonological processing in Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia

Purpose The ability to recognize individuals from their vocalizations is an important trait of human beings. In the current study, we aimed to examine how congenital amusia, an inborn pitch-processing disorder, affects discrimination and identification of talkers' voices. Method Twenty Mandarin-speaking amusics and 20 controls were tested on talker discrimination and identification in four types of contexts that varied in the degree of language familiarity: Mandarin real words, Mandarin pseudowords, Arabic words, and reversed Mandarin speech. Results The language familiarity effect was more evident in the talker identification task than the discrimination task for both participant groups, and talker identification accuracy decreased as native phonological representations were removed from the stimuli. Importantly, amusics demonstrated degraded performance in both native speech conditions that contained phonological/linguistic information to facilitate talker identification and nonnative conditions where talker voice processing primarily relied on phonetics cues, including pitch. Moreover, the performance in talker processing can be predicted by the participants' musical ability and phonological memory capacity. Conclusions The results provided a first set of behavioral evidence that individuals with amusia are impaired in the ability of human voice identification. Meanwhile, it is found that amusia is not only a pitch disorder but is likely to affect the phonological processing of speech, in terms of using phonological information in native speech to analyze a talker's identity. The above findings expanded the understanding of the nature and scope of congenital amusia. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12170379

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Subgroup differences in the lexical tone mismatch negativity (MMN) among Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia

Biological Psychology ◽

10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.11.010 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 113 ◽

pp. 59-67 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Yun Nan ◽

Wan-ting Huang ◽

Wen-jing Wang ◽

Chang Liu ◽

Qi Dong

Keyword(s):

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Subgroup Differences ◽

Congenital Amusia ◽

Mandarin Speakers

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The Effects of Acoustic Variation on the Perception of Lexical Tone in Cantonese-Speaking Congenital Amusics

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2018_jslhr-h-17-0483 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (1) ◽

pp. 190-205 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jing Shao ◽

Rebecca Yick Man Lau ◽

Phyllis Oi Ching Tang ◽

Caicai Zhang

Keyword(s):

Speech Processing ◽

Phonological Processing ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Pitch Processing ◽

Low Level ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Congenital Amusia ◽

Tone Discrimination ◽

High Level ◽

Acoustic Variation

Purpose Congenital amusia is an inborn neurogenetic disorder of fine-grained pitch processing. This study attempted to pinpoint the impairment mechanism of speech processing in tonal language speakers with amusia. We designed a series of perception tasks aiming at selectively probing low-level pitch processing and relatively high-level phonological processing of lexical tones, with an aim to illuminate the deficiency mechanism underlying tone perception in amusia. Method Sixteen Cantonese-speaking amusics and 16 matched controls were tested on the effects of acoustic (talker/syllable) variations on the identification and discrimination of Cantonese tones in two conditions. In the low-variation condition, tones were always associated with the same talker or syllable; in the high-variation condition, tones were associated with either different talkers (with the syllable controlled) or different syllables (with the talker controlled). Results Largely similar results were obtained in talker and syllable variation conditions. Amusics exhibited overall poorer performance than controls in tone identification. Although amusics also demonstrated poorer performance in tone discrimination, the group difference was more obvious in low-variation conditions, where more acoustic constancy was provided. Besides, controls exhibited a greater increase in discrimination sensitivity from high- to low-variation conditions, implying a stronger benefit of acoustic constancy. Conclusions The findings suggested that amusics' lexical tone perception abilities, in terms of both low-level pitch processing and high-level phonological processing, as measured in low- and high-variation conditions, are impaired. Importantly, amusics were more impaired in taking advantage of low acoustic variation contexts and thus less efficiently sharpened their perception of tones when perceptual anchors in talker/syllable were provided, suggesting a possible “anchoring deficit” in congenital amusia. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7616555

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Erratum: Corrigendum: Abnormal topological organization of the white matter network in Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/srep30102 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yanxin Zhao ◽

Xizhuo Chen ◽

Suyu Zhong ◽

Zaixu Cui ◽

Gaolang Gong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

White Matter ◽

Congenital Amusia ◽

Topological Organization ◽

Mandarin Speakers

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Nonword Repetition Skills in Gulf Arabic–Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00040 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (11) ◽

pp. 3700-3713

Author(s):

Saleh Shaalan

Keyword(s):

Phonological Processing ◽

Language Disorder ◽

Nonword Repetition ◽

School Age Children ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Developmental Language Disorder ◽

Gulf Arabic ◽

Arabic Speaking ◽

Phonological Complexity

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812

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Phonological and Spatial Processing Abilities in Language- and Reading-Impaired Children

Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders ◽

10.1044/jshd.5303.316 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 316-327 ◽

Cited By ~ 109

Author(s):

Alan G. Kamhi ◽

Hugh W. Catts ◽

Daria Mauer ◽

Kenn Apel ◽

Betholyn F. Gentry

Keyword(s):

Phonological Processing ◽

Spatial Information ◽

Normal Children ◽

Language Impaired ◽

Word Repetition ◽

Paper Folding ◽

Syllable Segmentation ◽

Processing Abilities ◽

Impaired Children ◽

Better Than

In the present study, we further examined (see Kamhi & Catts, 1986) the phonological processing abilities of language-impaired (LI) and reading-impaired (RI) children. We also evaluated these children's ability to process spatial information. Subjects were 10 LI, 10 RI, and 10 normal children between the ages of 6:8 and 8:10 years. Each subject was administered eight tasks: four word repetition tasks (monosyllabic, monosyllabic presented in noise, three-item, and multisyllabic), rapid naming, syllable segmentation, paper folding, and form completion. The normal children performed significantly better than both the LI and RI children on all but two tasks: syllable segmentation and repeating words presented in noise. The LI and RI children performed comparably on every task with the exception of the multisyllabic word repetition task. These findings were consistent with those from our previous study (Kamhi & Catts, 1986). The similarities and differences between LI and RI children are discussed.

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