Asymmetries in the perception of Mandarin tones: Evidence from mismatch negativity.

Abstract

Most investigations of the representation and processing of speech sounds focus on their segmental representations, and considerably less is known about the representation of suprasegmental phenomena (e.g., Mandarin tones). Here we examine the mismatch negativity (MMN) response to the contrast between Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) and other tones using a passive oddball paradigm. Because the MMN response has been shown to be sensitive to the featural contents of speech sounds in a way that is compatible with theories of phonological representations, here, we test the predictions of such theories regarding suprasegmental phenomena. Assuming T3 to be underspecified in Mandarin (because it has variable surface representations and low pitch), we predicted that an asymmetric MMN response would be elicited when T3 is contrasted with another tone. In 2 of our 3 experiments, this was observed, but in non-Mandarin-speaking participants as well as native speakers, suggesting that the locus of the effect was perceptual (acoustic or phonetic) rather than phonological. In a third experiment, the predicted asymmetry was limited to native speakers. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing phonological and perceptual contributions to MMN asymmetries, but also demonstrate a role of abstract phonological representations in which certain information is underspecified in long-term memory.

Laryngeal Features Are Phonetically Abstract: Mismatch Negativity Evidence from Arabic, English, and Russian

“…For Arabic-speaking listeners, under the laryngeal realism hypothesis, the asymmetry is expected to be in the opposite direction: the difference wave of the voiced MMN minus the voiceless MMN is expected to be positive. [Alternatively, other non-phonological perceptual factors may exert similar influences on both English-speaking and Arabic-speaking listeners (see e.g., Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016), which may cause this difference wave to be negative for Arabic-speaking listeners as well, but at least it should be less negative than that for English-speaking listeners]. Therefore, if the feature marking hypothesis of laryngeal realism are correct, the difference of the MMN waves for English-speaking listeners minus the difference of the MMN waves for Arabic-speaking listeners must be negative-going .…”

“…In this paper, we turn to neurophysiological data, in the form of the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm, that has been argued to reveal at least some aspects of phonological structure (Phillips et al, 2000; Walter and Hacquard, 2004; Kazanina et al, 2006; Scharinger et al, 2010, 2012; Cornell et al, 2011, 2013; Law et al, 2013; Truckenbrodt et al, 2014; de Jonge and Boersma, 2015; Hestvik and Durvasula, 2016; Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016; Schluter et al, 2016) in order to test these different representational approaches. In three MMN experiments, we test English, Arabic, and Russian, three different languages that have a functional two-way voicing distinction at a phonological level, but which rely on different underlying articulatory mechanisms to implement these distinctions during speech production.…”

“…When a marked sound is the deviant and an unmarked sound the standard, the MMN is smaller than when the unmarked sound is the deviant and the marked sound the standard. Eulitz and Lahiri (2004) argue this is related to the phonological representation of the sounds, where the marked deviant is not inconsistent with the unmarked standard, but an unmarked deviant has a phonetic representation which clashes with the marked stored representation of the standard, amplifying the strength of the MMN (see Alternatives Accounts and Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016, for a review of other factors that can cause MMN asymmetries that may not be tied to the markedness of distinctive features). This mechanism is referred to as underspecification in the phonological literature (Archangeli, 1984, 1988; Lahiri and Reetz, 2002, 2010; Eulitz and Lahiri, 2004, among others).…”

Neurophysiological and Behavioral Responses of Mandarin Lexical Tone Processing

“…Phonology involves abstract mental representation. A paradigm that is likely to result in the listener engaging phonemic abstraction is one in which the speech stimuli include within-category variation (Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016). Multiple tokens of the deviant and standard stimuli provide this within category variation.…”

Cognitive basis of individual differences in speech perception, production and representations: The role of domain general attentional switching

“…Results of the EEG experiment revealed an asymmetrical MMN pattern to the contrast between T2 and T5, that is, the MMN response was present in T2/T5 but not T5/T2 (as was also observed in Ou & Law, 2016). The asymmetric MMN pattern was reported in studies using vowels or consonants (e.g., Eulitz & Lahiri, 2004) as well as Mandarin tones (Politzer-Ahles, Schluter, Wu, & Almeida, 2016). Asymmetry has been hypothesized to occur as a result of phonological underspecification (e.g., Cornell, Lahiri, & Eulitz, 2011.…”