Linguistic experience and musical training in shaping Mandarin tone perception by trilingual non-native Cantonese listeners

Purpose The purpose of the study was to examine the aging effect on the categorical perception of Mandarin Chinese Tone 2 (rising F0 pitch contour) and Tone 3 (falling-then-rising F0 pitch contour) as well as on the thresholds of pitch contour discrimination. Method Three experiments of Mandarin tone perception were conducted for younger and older listeners with Mandarin Chinese as the native language. The first 2 experiments were in the categorical perception paradigm: tone identification and tone discrimination for a series of stimuli, the F0 contour of which systematically varied from Tone 2 to Tone 3. In the third experiment, the just-noticeable differences of pitch contour discrimination were measured for both groups. Results In the measures of categorical perception, older listeners showed significantly shallower slopes in the tone identification function and significantly smaller peakedness in the tone discrimination function compared with younger listeners. Moreover, the thresholds of pitch contour discrimination were significantly higher for older listeners than for younger listeners. Conclusion These results suggest that aging reduced the categoricality of Mandarin tone perception and worsened the psychoacoustic capacity to discriminate pitch contour changes, thereby possibly leading to older listeners' difficulty in identifying Tones 2 and 3.

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Effects of voice gender and noise on Mandarin tone perception by cochlear implant users

2012 5th International Conference on BioMedical Engineering and Informatics ◽

10.1109/bmei.2012.6512922 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Meng Yuan ◽

Haihong Feng

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implant ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Mandarin Tone

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Effects of limiting the number of active electrodes on mandarin tone perception in young children using cochlear implants

Acta Oto-Laryngologica ◽

10.1080/00016480410017846 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 124 (10) ◽

pp. 1149-1154 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Tien-chen Liu ◽

Hsiao-ping Chen ◽

Hung-ching Lin

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Cochlear Implants ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Mandarin Tone

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The role of linguistic experience in the hemispheric processing of lexical tone

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716404001213 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 449-466 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

YUE WANG ◽

DAWN M. BEHNE ◽

ALLARD JONGMAN ◽

JOAN A. SERENO

Keyword(s):

Left Hemisphere ◽

Hemispheric Lateralization ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Hemispheric Processing ◽

Linguistic Experience ◽

Hemisphere Dominance ◽

Ear Advantage ◽

Nonnative Listeners ◽

Mandarin Tone

This study investigated hemispheric lateralization of Mandarin tone. Four groups of listeners were examined: native Mandarin listeners, English–Mandarin bilinguals, Norwegian listeners with experience with Norwegian tone, and American listeners with no tone experience. Tone pairs were dichotically presented and listeners identified which tone they heard in each ear. For the Mandarin listeners, 57% of the total errors occurred in the left ear, indicating a right-ear (left-hemisphere) advantage. The English–Mandarin bilinguals exhibited nativelike patterns, with 56% left-ear errors. However, no ear advantage was found for the Norwegian or American listeners (48 and 47% left-ear errors, respectively). Results indicate left-hemisphere dominance of Mandarin tone by native and proficient bilingual listeners, whereas nonnative listeners show no evidence of lateralization, regardless of their familiarity with lexical tone.

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