Categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese revealed by mismatch negativity

Xiao, Jie; Zhang, L.; Shu, Hua; Zhang, Y.; Li, Ping

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2010.06.077

Cited by 153 publications

(205 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In another ERP study of categorical perception of tones at the attentive stage, Zhang et al (2012a) found that the conscious processing of the within-category stimuli and the across-category stimuli involved the N2b and P3b components. The data were compatible with the response patterns as Xi et al (2010): for both N2b and P3b, across-category stimuli elicited larger response in the left recording sites than the right; while the within-category stimuli elicited the same response in both hemispheres.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…These fMRI findings indicate how low-level acoustic analysis (within-category) is modulated by high-level phonological representations (across-category), and are therefore consistent and complementary with the MMN findings reported in Xi et al (2010). In another ERP study of categorical perception of tones at the attentive stage, Zhang et al (2012a) found that the conscious processing of the within-category stimuli and the across-category stimuli involved the N2b and P3b components.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…When a native speaker processes lexical tones in Chinese, 1 the speaker deals with at least two types of information: the acoustic information that includes the physical features of auditory input such as the fundamental frequency (F0), and the phonological information that expresses lexical semantics on the basis of which word categories are identified (Luo et al, 2006;Xi et al, 2010). To investigate the difference between the processes of the acoustic vs. the phonological information in lexical tones, one line of previous research has been to understand whether lexical tonal processing in Chinese is left or right lateralized in the brain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This acrosscategory vs. within-category perception difference has been extensively studied in previous work with segmental phonemes, such as consonants and vowels (e.g., with VOT characteristics), but are less well understood in studies with suprasegmental features such as tones. It has been found recently, however, that the perception of lexical tones shows categorical perception just as do phonemes: native speakers of tonal languages are more sensitive to acrosscategory tonal variations than within-category variations (see Francis et al, 2003;Hallé et al, 2004;Xu et al, 2006;Xi et al, 2010). Xi et al (2010) used MMN to examine categorical perception of tones in Chinese.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been found recently, however, that the perception of lexical tones shows categorical perception just as do phonemes: native speakers of tonal languages are more sensitive to acrosscategory tonal variations than within-category variations (see Francis et al, 2003;Hallé et al, 2004;Xu et al, 2006;Xi et al, 2010). Xi et al (2010) used MMN to examine categorical perception of tones in Chinese. The authors found that although both acrosscategory and within-category variations of tones elicited MMNs in bilateral frontal-central areas, the former elicited larger MMNs in the left than that in the right hemisphere, whereas the latter elicited larger MMNs in the right than in the left hemisphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Processing of Acoustic and Phonological Information of Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Revealed by Mismatch Negativity

Wang¹,

Li²,

Yu³

et al. 2014

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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The accurate perception of lexical tones in tonal languages involves the processing of both acoustic information and phonological information carried by the tonal signal. In this study we evaluated the relative role of the two types of information in native Chinese speaker's processing of tones at a preattentive stage with event-related potentials (ERPs), particularly the mismatch negativity (MNN). Specifically, we distinguished the acoustic from the phonological information by manipulating phonological category and acoustic interval of the stimulus materials. We found a significant main effect of phonological category for the peak latency of MMN, but a main effect of both phonological category and acoustic interval for the mean amplitude of MMN. The results indicated that the two types of information, acoustic and phonological, play different roles in the processing of Chinese lexical tones: acoustic information only impacts the extent of tonal processing, while phonological information affects both the extent and the time course of tonal processing. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of neurocognitive processes of phonological processing.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Processing of Acoustic and Phonological Information of Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Revealed by Mismatch Negativity

Wang¹,

Li²,

Yu³

et al. 2014

PsycEXTRA Dataset

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading

et al. 2014

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Research on how lexical tone is neuroanatomically represented in the human brain is central to our understanding of cortical regions subserving language. Past studies have exclusively focused on tone perception of the spoken language, and little is known as to the lexical tone processing in reading visual words and its associated brain mechanisms. In this study, we performed two experiments to identify neural substrates in Chinese tone reading. First, we used a tone judgment paradigm to investigate tone processing of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that, relative to baseline, tone perception of printed Chinese characters were mediated by strong brain activation in bilateral frontal regions, left inferior parietal lobule, left posterior middle/medial temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal region, bilateral visual systems, and cerebellum. Surprisingly, no activation was found in superior temporal regions, brain sites well known for speech tone processing. In activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to combine results of relevant published studies, we attempted to elucidate whether the left temporal cortex activities identified in Experiment one is consistent with those found in previous studies of auditory lexical tone perception. ALE results showed that only the left superior temporal gyrus and putamen were critical in auditory lexical tone processing. These findings suggest that activation in the superior temporal cortex associated with lexical tone perception is modality-dependent.

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Neural correlates of intonation and lexical tone in tonal and non‐tonal language speakers

Chien

Friederici

Hartwigsen

et al. 2020

Human Brain Mapping

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Intonation, the modulation of pitch in speech, is a crucial aspect of language that is processed in right‐hemispheric regions, beyond the classical left‐hemispheric language system. Whether or not this notion generalises across languages remains, however, unclear. Particularly, tonal languages are an interesting test case because of the dual linguistic function of pitch that conveys lexical meaning in form of tone, in addition to intonation. To date, only few studies have explored how intonation is processed in tonal languages, how this compares to tone and between tonal and non‐tonal language speakers. The present fMRI study addressed these questions by testing Mandarin and German speakers with Mandarin material. Both groups categorised mono‐syllabic Mandarin words in terms of intonation, tone, and voice gender. Systematic comparisons of brain activity of the two groups between the three tasks showed large cross‐linguistic commonalities in the neural processing of intonation in left fronto‐parietal, right frontal, and bilateral cingulo‐opercular regions. These areas are associated with general phonological, specific prosodic, and controlled categorical decision‐making processes, respectively. Tone processing overlapped with intonation processing in left fronto‐parietal areas, in both groups, but evoked additional activity in bilateral temporo‐parietal semantic regions and subcortical areas in Mandarin speakers only. Together, these findings confirm cross‐linguistic commonalities in the neural implementation of intonation processing but dissociations for semantic processing of tone only in tonal language speakers.

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Categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese revealed by mismatch negativity

Cited by 153 publications

References 45 publications

Processing of Acoustic and Phonological Information of Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Revealed by Mismatch Negativity

Processing of Acoustic and Phonological Information of Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Revealed by Mismatch Negativity

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading

Neural correlates of intonation and lexical tone in tonal and non‐tonal language speakers

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