Dichotic Perception of Lexical Tones in Cantonese-Speaking Congenital Amusics

Shao, Jing; Zhang, Caicai

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01411

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“… 2 Following Xi et al (2010) , we compared amplitudes of F3 and F4 and added this as an extra within-subject factor Electrode to probe into the hemispheric pattern, which indicated that the main effect or interactions of Electrode with other factors were not significant ( p s > 0.1). Despite the low spatial resolution of ERP, the result as a preliminary sign manifested that the perception of Mandarin lexical tones is supported by neither one specific area nor a single hemisphere ( Gandour et al, 2004 ; Witteman et al, 2011 ; Price, 2012 ; Si et al, 2017 ; Liang and Du, 2018 ; Shao and Zhang, 2020 ). …”

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confidence: 75%

Effects of Amateur Musical Experience on Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones by Native Chinese Adults: An ERP Study

2021

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Music impacting on speech processing is vividly evidenced in most reports involving professional musicians, while the question of whether the facilitative effects of music are limited to experts or may extend to amateurs remains to be resolved. Previous research has suggested that analogous to language experience, musicianship also modulates lexical tone perception but the influence of amateur musical experience in adulthood is poorly understood. Furthermore, little is known about how acoustic information and phonological information of lexical tones are processed by amateur musicians. This study aimed to provide neural evidence of cortical plasticity by examining categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese adults with amateur musical experience relative to the non-musician counterparts. Fifteen adult Chinese amateur musicians and an equal number of non-musicians participated in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. Their mismatch negativities (MMNs) to lexical tones from Mandarin Tone 2–Tone 4 continuum and non-speech tone analogs were measured. It was hypothesized that amateur musicians would exhibit different MMNs to their non-musician counterparts in processing two aspects of information in lexical tones. Results showed that the MMN mean amplitude evoked by within-category deviants was significantly larger for amateur musicians than non-musicians regardless of speech or non-speech condition. This implies the strengthened processing of acoustic information by adult amateur musicians without the need of focused attention, as the detection of subtle acoustic nuances of pitch was measurably improved. In addition, the MMN peak latency elicited by across-category deviants was significantly shorter than that by within-category deviants for both groups, indicative of the earlier processing of phonological information than acoustic information of lexical tones at the pre-attentive stage. The results mentioned above suggest that cortical plasticity can still be induced in adulthood, hence non-musicians should be defined more strictly than before. Besides, the current study enlarges the population demonstrating the beneficial effects of musical experience on perceptual and cognitive functions, namely, the effects of enhanced speech processing from music are not confined to a small group of experts but extend to a large population of amateurs.

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confidence: 75%

Effects of Amateur Musical Experience on Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones by Native Chinese Adults: An ERP Study

2021

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“…Finally, all the identified brain regions were located in the right hemisphere. In right-handed healthy humans, the right hemisphere is more specialized in musical and non-verbal processing, such as pitch discrimination, timbre detection, and musical structure processing, while the left hemisphere is more dedicated to linguistic and verbal processing, such as the processing of spoken words, digits, and syllables ( 82 ). CA mainly manifests as pitch perception and pitch memory impairments ( 5 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical Morphological Changes in Congenital Amusia: Surface-Based Analyses

et al. 2022

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Background: Congenital amusia (CA) is a rare disorder characterized by deficits in pitch perception, and many structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have been conducted to better understand its neural bases. However, a structural magnetic resonance imaging analysis using a surface-based morphology method to identify regions with cortical features abnormalities at the vertex-based level has not yet been performed.Methods: Fifteen participants with CA and 13 healthy controls underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. A surface-based morphology method was used to identify anatomical abnormalities. Then, the surface parameters' mean value of the identified clusters with statistically significant between-group differences were extracted and compared. Finally, Pearson's correlation analysis was used to assess the correlation between the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) scores and surface parameters.Results: The CA group had significantly lower MBEA scores than the healthy controls (p = 0.000). The CA group exhibited a significant higher fractal dimension in the right caudal middle frontal gyrus and a lower sulcal depth in the right pars triangularis gyrus (p < 0.05; false discovery rate-corrected at the cluster level) compared to healthy controls. There were negative correlations between the mean fractal dimension values in the right caudal middle frontal gyrus and MBEA score, including the mean MBEA score (r = −0.5398, p = 0.0030), scale score (r = −0.5712, p = 0.0015), contour score (r = −0.4662, p = 0.0124), interval score (r = −0.4564, p = 0.0146), rhythmic score (r = −0.5133, p = 0.0052), meter score (r = −0.3937, p = 0.0382), and memory score (r = −0.3879, p = 0.0414). There was a significant positive correlation between the mean sulcal depth in the right pars triangularis gyrus and the MBEA score, including the mean score (r = 0.5130, p = 0.0052), scale score (r = 0.5328, p = 0.0035), interval score (r = 0.4059, p = 0.0321), rhythmic score (r = 0.5733, p = 0.0014), meter score (r = 0.5061, p = 0.0060), and memory score (r = 0.4001, p = 0.0349).Conclusion: Individuals with CA exhibit cortical morphological changes in the right hemisphere. These findings may indicate that the neural basis of speech perception and memory impairments in individuals with CA is associated with abnormalities in the right pars triangularis gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, and that these cortical abnormalities may be a neural marker of CA.

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“…It has been well established that learning an alphabetic script boosts phonological awareness at the behavioral level (Morais et al, 1979;Cheung et al, 2001;Shu et al, 2008;. Phonological awareness usually refers to the ability to analyze the spoken language into smaller units such as phonemes (Liberman et al, 1974).…”

Section: The Effect Of Alphabetic Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phonological awareness usually refers to the ability to analyze the spoken language into smaller units such as phonemes (Liberman et al, 1974). Since lexical tone is a suprasegmental unit that distinguishes word meanings in tonal languages, tone awareness can be considered as a component of phonological awareness, which involves the ability to recognize and extract the lexical tone from a speech unit (Shu et al, 2008;Li and Suk-Han Ho, 2011). For example, Cheung et al (2001) (Morais et al, 1979;Read et al, 1986;Morais, 2021).…”

Section: The Effect Of Alphabetic Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to Mandarin Chinese and Thai in which tones are marked as written labels with various degrees of precision in the respective alphabet (Pinyin or the Thai script), most Hong Kong Cantonese speakers learned logographic Chinese without exposure to a native alphabetic script of spoken Cantonese. Based on the well-established link between alphabetic literacy and phonological awareness, including tone awareness (Morais et al, 1979;Cheung et al, 2001;Shu et al, 2008;Li and Suk-Han Ho, 2011), lack of exposure to written codes of the native tones may account for the LEA observed in Hong Kong Cantonese listeners. Other factors that may explain the discrepancy are the differences in stimulus type (e.g., nonspeech and speech tones) and tone type (e.g., level tones and contour tones).…”

Section: Introduction Ear Preference In Lexical Tone Perception Revea...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of alphabetic literacy, linguistic-processing demand and tone type on the dichotic listening of lexical tones

Shao

Zhang

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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Brain lateralization of lexical tone processing remains a matter of debate. In this study we used a dichotic listening paradigm to examine the influences of the knowledge of Jyutping (a romanization writing system which provides explicit Cantonese tone markers), linguistic-processing demand and tone type on the ear preference pattern of native tone processing in Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. While participants with little knowledge of Jyutping showed a previously reported left-ear advantage (LEA), those with a good level of Jyutping expertise exhibited either a right-ear advantage or bilateral processing during lexical tone identification and contour tone discrimination, respectively. As for the effect of linguistic-processing demand, while an LEA was found in acoustic/phonetic perception situations, this advantage disappeared and was replaced by a bilateral pattern in conditions that involved a greater extent of linguistic processing, suggesting an increased involvement of the left hemisphere. Regarding the effect of tone type, both groups showed an LEA in level tone discrimination, but only the Jyutping group demonstrated a bilateral pattern in contour tone discrimination. Overall, knowledge of written codes of tones, greater degree of linguistic processing and contour tone processing seem to influence the brain lateralization of lexical tone processing in native listeners of Cantonese by increasing the recruitment of the left-hemisphere language network.

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Dichotic Perception of Lexical Tones in Cantonese-Speaking Congenital Amusics

Cited by 6 publications

References 67 publications

Effects of Amateur Musical Experience on Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones by Native Chinese Adults: An ERP Study

Effects of Amateur Musical Experience on Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones by Native Chinese Adults: An ERP Study

Cortical Morphological Changes in Congenital Amusia: Surface-Based Analyses

The effects of alphabetic literacy, linguistic-processing demand and tone type on the dichotic listening of lexical tones

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