Fine-Grained Pitch Discrimination in Congenital Amusics with Mandarin Chinese

a group of 11 amusic individuals with mandarin as their first language were tested on a two-tone discrimination task. In addition, a four-tone sequence task with an additional initial reference note and a final return to the reference note (i.e., AABA) was employed to assess if repeating the reference note resulted in an improvement of pitch discrimination for amusic individuals. The findings showed that the amusic participants had difficulty discriminating two-tone pairs and four-tone sequences relative to 11 control participants. The performance of the amusic group on the four-tone sequence was not better than that predicted based upon their performance during the two-tone task, indicating that repetition of the reference note did not aid performance. The findings suggest that tonal language experience may not facilitate fine-grained pitch discrimination for amusics who speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language.

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Second Language Perception of Mandarin Vowels and Tones

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830917717759 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 135-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Yen-Chen Hao

Keyword(s):

Discrimination Task ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Language Experience ◽

Relative Difficulty ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Tonal Language ◽

Naive Group ◽

Beginning Learners ◽

Mandarin Vowels

This study examines the discrimination of Mandarin vowels and tones by native English speakers with varying amounts of Mandarin experience, aiming to investigate the relative difficulty of these two types of sounds for English speakers at different learning stages, and the source of their difficulty. Seventeen advanced learners of Mandarin (Ex group), eighteen beginning learners (InEx group), and eighteen English speakers naïve to Mandarin (Naïve group) participated in an AXB discrimination task. The stimuli were two Mandarin vowel contrasts, /li–ly/ and /lu–ly/, and two tonal contrasts, T1–T4 and T2–T3. The predicted difficulty for each contrast was hypothesized based on the assimilation of these sounds to English reported in previous work. The results showed that the Naïve group was more accurate with vowel contrasts than with tones, suggesting that non-tonal language speakers without any Mandarin training are less sensitive to tonal distinction than to vowels. The two learner groups, on the other hand, were highly accurate with all contrasts except for the T2–T3 pair, and achieved significantly higher accuracy than the Naïve group on /li–ly/ and T1–T4. This lends support to the view that experience in Mandarin improves English speakers’ sensitivity to tonal distinction, helping them discriminate some tones as accurately as vowels. However, all three groups achieved low accuracy in discriminating T2 and T3, suggesting that this contrast may be inherently difficult and resistant to improvement. This study shows that various factors in addition to the native language experience may affect the perception of non-native vowels and tones.

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Acquiring the pitch patterns of L2 Mandarin Chinese

Chinese as a Second Language Research ◽

10.1515/caslar-2013-0031 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 221-242 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Chunsheng Yang

Keyword(s):

Mandarin Chinese ◽

Exploratory Study ◽

First Language ◽

Tone Sequence ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Subject Group ◽

Syntactic Structures ◽

The Subject ◽

Pitch Patterns ◽

L1 And L2

AbstractThis study examines the acquisition of utterance-level pitch patterns in Mandarin Chinese by American second language (L2) learners. It is an exploratory study with the goal of identifying the utterance-level prosody in L2 Mandarin Chinese. The focus of this study is not on the pitch patterns of individual learners but those of subject groups. The analysis shows that the pitch patterns between two syntactic structures for the same tone sequence vary with the tone sequence and the subject group. The biggest difference between first language (L1) and L2 Mandarin Chinese lies in the frequency of target undershoot in L2 speech. The infrequent tone target undershoot in L2 speech, especially among the intermediate learners, was attributed to the incomplete acquisition of L2 prosody. It was argued that the infrequent tone target undershoot may render L2 speech more staccato or robot-like, which contributes to the perception of a foreign accent in L2 Mandarin Chinese.

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On the Relationship Between General Auditory Sensitivity and Speech Perception: An Examination of Pitch and Lexical Tone Perception in 4- to 6-Year-Old Children

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-19-00104 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (2) ◽

pp. 487-498

Author(s):

Puisan Wong ◽

Man Wai Cheng

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Developmental Trajectory ◽

Auditory Sensitivity ◽

Pitch Discrimination ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Perceptual Training ◽

Lexical Tones ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Tone Discrimination

Purpose Theoretical models and substantial research have proposed that general auditory sensitivity is a developmental foundation for speech perception and language acquisition. Nonetheless, controversies exist about the effectiveness of general auditory training in improving speech and language skills. This research investigated the relationships among general auditory sensitivity, phonemic speech perception, and word-level speech perception via the examination of pitch and lexical tone perception in children. Method Forty-eight typically developing 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children were tested on the discrimination of the pitch patterns of lexical tones in synthetic stimuli, discrimination of naturally produced lexical tones, and identification of lexical tone in familiar words. Results The findings revealed that accurate lexical tone discrimination and identification did not necessarily entail the accurate discrimination of nonlinguistic stimuli that followed the pitch levels and pitch shapes of lexical tones. Although pitch discrimination and tone discrimination abilities were strongly correlated, accuracy in pitch discrimination was lower than that in tone discrimination, and nonspeech pitch discrimination ability did not precede linguistic tone discrimination in the developmental trajectory. Conclusions Contradicting the theoretical models, the findings of this study suggest that general auditory sensitivity and speech perception may not be causally or hierarchically related. The finding that accuracy in pitch discrimination is lower than that in tone discrimination suggests that comparable nonlinguistic auditory perceptual ability may not be necessary for accurate speech perception and language learning. The results cast doubt on the use of nonlinguistic auditory perceptual training to improve children's speech, language, and literacy abilities.

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The computation and suspension of presuppositions by L1-Mandarin Chinese L2-English speakers

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658321993873 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026765832199387

Author(s):

Shuo Feng

Keyword(s):

Mandarin Chinese ◽

First Language ◽

English Speakers ◽

Similar Response ◽

Response Patterns ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Precise Understanding ◽

L2 Learners ◽

External Interface ◽

Discourse Interface

The Interface Hypothesis proposes that second language (L2) learners, even at highly proficient levels, often fail to integrate information at the external interfaces where grammar interacts with other cognitive systems. While much early L2 work has focused on the syntax–discourse interface or scalar implicatures at the semantics–pragmatics interface, the present article adds to this line of research by exploring another understudied phenomenon at the semantics–pragmatics interface, namely, presuppositions. Furthermore, this study explores both inference computation and suspension via a covered-box picture-selection task. Specifically, this study investigates the interpretation of a presupposition trigger stop and stop under negation. The results from 38 native English speakers and 41 first language (L1) Mandarin Chinese learners of English indicated similar response patterns between native and L2 groups in computing presuppositions but not in suspending presuppositions. That is, L2 learners were less likely to suspend presuppositions than native speakers. This study contributes to a more precise understanding of L2 acquisition at the external interface level, as well as computation and suspension of pragmatic inferences.

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Learning of across- and within-task contingencies modulates partial-repetition costs in dual-tasking

Psychological Research ◽

10.1007/s00426-021-01518-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lasse Pelzer ◽

Christoph Naefgen ◽

Robert Gaschler ◽

Hilde Haider

Keyword(s):

Dual Task ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Experimental Approach ◽

Feature Binding ◽

Dual Tasking ◽

Single Task ◽

Task Set ◽

Task Processing ◽

Tone Discrimination ◽

Task Sets

AbstractDual-task costs might result from confusions on the task-set level as both tasks are not represented as distinct task-sets, but rather being integrated into a single task-set. This suggests that events in the two tasks are stored and retrieved together as an integrated memory episode. In a series of three experiments, we tested for such integrated task processing and whether it can be modulated by regularities between the stimuli of the two tasks (across-task contingencies) or by sequential regularities within one of the tasks (within-task contingencies). Building on the experimental approach of feature binding in action control, we tested whether the participants in a dual-tasking experiment will show partial-repetition costs: they should be slower when only the stimulus in one of the two tasks is repeated from Trial n − 1 to Trial n than when the stimuli in both tasks repeat. In all three experiments, the participants processed a visual-manual and an auditory-vocal tone-discrimination task which were always presented concurrently. In Experiment 1, we show that retrieval of Trial n − 1 episodes is stable across practice if the stimulus material is drawn randomly. Across-task contingencies (Experiment 2) and sequential regularities within a task (Experiment 3) can compete with n − 1-based retrieval leading to a reduction of partial-repetition costs with practice. Overall the results suggest that participants do not separate the processing of the two tasks, yet, within-task contingencies might reduce integrated task processing.

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AutoSense Model for Word Sense Induction

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence ◽

10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33016212 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 ◽

pp. 6212-6219 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Reinald Kim Amplayo ◽

Seung-won Hwang ◽

Min Song

Keyword(s):

Latent Variable ◽

Word Sense ◽

Name Disambiguation ◽

Variable Model ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Word Sense Induction ◽

Author Name Disambiguation ◽

Competing Models ◽

Word Senses ◽

Better Than

Word sense induction (WSI), or the task of automatically discovering multiple senses or meanings of a word, has three main challenges: domain adaptability, novel sense detection, and sense granularity flexibility. While current latent variable models are known to solve the first two challenges, they are not flexible to different word sense granularities, which differ very much among words, from aardvark with one sense, to play with over 50 senses. Current models either require hyperparameter tuning or nonparametric induction of the number of senses, which we find both to be ineffective. Thus, we aim to eliminate these requirements and solve the sense granularity problem by proposing AutoSense, a latent variable model based on two observations: (1) senses are represented as a distribution over topics, and (2) senses generate pairings between the target word and its neighboring word. These observations alleviate the problem by (a) throwing garbage senses and (b) additionally inducing fine-grained word senses. Results show great improvements over the stateof-the-art models on popular WSI datasets. We also show that AutoSense is able to learn the appropriate sense granularity of a word. Finally, we apply AutoSense to the unsupervised author name disambiguation task where the sense granularity problem is more evident and show that AutoSense is evidently better than competing models. We share our data and code here: https://github.com/rktamplayo/AutoSense.

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Sequential bilingual heritage children's L1 attrition in lexical retrieval: Age of acquisition versus language experience

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728921001139 ◽

2022 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Kitaek Kim ◽

Hyunwoo Kim

Keyword(s):

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Heritage Language ◽

First Language ◽

Age Of Acquisition ◽

Naming Task ◽

Lexical Retrieval ◽

Language Attrition ◽

Language Experience ◽

Length Of Residence ◽

Heritage Speakers

Abstract This study investigated the unresolved issue of potential sources of heritage language attrition. To test contributing effects of three learner variables – age of second language acquisition, length of residence, and language input – on heritage children's lexical retrieval accuracy and speed, we conducted a real-time word naming task with 68 children (age 11–14 years) living in South Korea who spoke either Chinese or Russian as a heritage language. Results of regression analyses showed that the participants were less accurate and slower in naming target words in their heritage language as their length of residence in Korea and the amount of Korean input increased. The age of Korean acquisition did not significantly influence their performance. These findings support the claim that heritage speakers’ language experience is a more reliable predictor of first language attrition than age of acquisition. We discuss these findings in light of different approaches to explaining language attrition.

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Aging Effect on Categorical Perception of Mandarin Tones 2 and 3 and Thresholds of Pitch Contour Discrimination

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2016_aja-16-0020 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 18-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Yuxia Wang ◽

Xiaohu Yang ◽

Hui Zhang ◽

Lilong Xu ◽

Can Xu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mandarin Chinese ◽

Categorical Perception ◽

Aging Effect ◽

Pitch Contour ◽

Tone Perception ◽

F0 Contour ◽

Identification Function ◽

Tone Discrimination ◽

Mandarin Tones ◽

Mandarin Tone

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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Mapping the Space of Chemical Reactions using Attention-Based Neural Networks

10.26434/chemrxiv.9897365.v3 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Philippe Schwaller ◽

Daniel Probst ◽

Alain C. Vaucher ◽

Vishnu H Nair ◽

David Kreutter ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neural Networks ◽

Reaction Center ◽

Chemical Reactions ◽

Chemical Reaction ◽

Classification Accuracy ◽

Similarity Searching ◽

Reaction Space ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Visual Clustering ◽

Better Than

<div><div><div><p>Organic reactions are usually assigned to classes grouping reactions with similar reagents and mechanisms. Reaction classes facilitate communication of complex concepts and efficient navigation through chemical reaction space. However, the classification process is a tedious task, requiring the identification of the corresponding reaction class template via annotation of the number of molecules in the reactions, the reaction center and the distinction between reactants and reagents. In this work, we show that transformer-based models can infer reaction classes from non-annotated, simple text-based representations of chemical reactions. Our best model reaches a classification accuracy of 98.2%. We also show that the learned representations can be used as reaction fingerprints which capture fine-grained differences between reaction classes better than traditional reaction fingerprints. The unprecedented insights into chemical reaction space enabled by our learned fingerprints is illustrated by an interactive reaction atlas providing visual clustering and similarity searching. </p><p><br></p><p>Code: https://github.com/rxn4chemistry/rxnfp</p><p>Tutorials: https://rxn4chemistry.github.io/rxnfp/</p><p>Interactive reaction atlas: https://rxn4chemistry.github.io/rxnfp//tmaps/tmap_ft_10k.html</p></div></div></div>

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Fine-Grained Pests Recognition Based on Truncated Probability Fusion Network via Internet of Things in Forestry and Agricultural Scenes

Algorithms ◽

10.3390/a14100290 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (10) ◽

pp. 290

Author(s):

Kai Ma ◽

Ming-Jun Nie ◽

Sen Lin ◽

Jianlei Kong ◽

Cheng-Cai Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Internet Of Things ◽

Insect Pests ◽

Accurate Identification ◽

Technical Application ◽

Network Mining ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Feature Expression ◽

The Internet Of Things ◽

Different Levels ◽

Better Than

Accurate identification of insect pests is the key to improve crop yield and ensure quality and safety. However, under the influence of environmental conditions, the same kind of pests show obvious differences in intraclass representation, while the different kinds of pests show slight similarities. The traditional methods have been difficult to deal with fine-grained identification of pests, and their practical deployment is low. In order to solve this problem, this paper uses a variety of equipment terminals in the agricultural Internet of Things to obtain a large number of pest images and proposes a fine-grained identification model of pests based on probability fusion network FPNT. This model designs a fine-grained feature extractor based on an optimized CSPNet backbone network, mining different levels of local feature expression that can distinguish subtle differences. After the integration of the NetVLAD aggregation layer, the gated probability fusion layer gives full play to the advantages of information complementarity and confidence coupling of multi-model fusion. The comparison test shows that the PFNT model has an average recognition accuracy of 93.18% for all kinds of pests, and its performance is better than other deep-learning methods, with the average processing time drop to 61 ms, which can meet the needs of fine-grained image recognition of pests in the Internet of Things in agricultural and forestry practice, and provide technical application reference for intelligent early warning and prevention of pests.

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