Processing melodic contour and speech intonation in congenital amusics with Mandarin Chinese

Cross-domain correlation in pitch perception, the influence of native language

“…Previous studies with amusics have found that tone language amusic listeners were impaired at perceiving their native intonation patterns (Jiang et al, 2010), and non-tone language amusics were less accurate compared to controls when discriminating lexical tones (Tillmann et al, 2011). These studies seem to argue for a shared processing between speech pitch and musical pitch regardless of language background.…”

“…With regard to the enhancement in lexical tone perception brought about by music aptitude, it has been found that, compared to non-tone language speakers without music training, non-tone language musicians are better at detecting lexical tonal variations (Alexander, Wong, & Bradlow, 2005;Delogu, Lampis, & Belardinelli, 2006;Marie, Delogu, Lampis, Belardinelli, & Besson, 2011), and learning to pair pitch patterns to word meaning (which is similar to learning lexical tones) (Wong & Perrachione, 2007). Speaking a tone language has also been found to be beneficial for music perception (Alexander, Bradlow, Ashley, & Wong, 2008;Bidelman, Hutka, & Moreno, 2013;Jiang, Hamm, Lim, Kirk, & Yang, 2010;Pfordresher & Brown, 2009;Stevens, Keller, & Tyler, 2004;Tillmann et al, 2011;Wong et al, 2012). In sum, earlier studies on pitch processing in language and music show mixed results, suggesting autonomy as well as interdependencies between the two domains.…”

EPS Prize Lecture: Characterizing congenital amusia

“…To test this hypothesis in its fullest form, a cross-language comparison of the prevalence of congenital amusia would be needed. Nevertheless, two separate cohorts of Chinese individuals have been diagnosed with congenital amusia, using the MBEA, suggesting that language background does not always (if ever) mitigate against the development of the disorder (Jiang, Hamm, Lim, Kirk, & Yang, 2010;Nan, Sun, & Peretz, 2010). Like the cohort reported in Liu et al (2010), these individuals did not report difficulties with spoken communication, while laboratory tests of pitch processing with lexical tones revealed deficits relative to controls.…”

Impaired categorical perception of lexical tones in Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics

“…These pitch deficits manifest as a difficulty in making fine-grained pitch discriminations (Foxton, Dean, Gee, Peretz & Griffiths, 2004;Hyde & Peretz, 2004;Jiang, Hamm, Lim, Kirk & Yang, 2011), processing pitch-change direction (Foxton et al, 2004;Liu, Patel, Fourcin & Stewart, 2010), and deciding whether two sequences of pitches are the same or different (Foxton et al, 2004;Hyde & Peretz, 2004;Jiang, Hamm, Lim, Kirk & Yang, 2010). Some studies have suggested that amusics may also have pitch memory deficits (Gosselin, Jolicoeur & Peretz, 2009;Tillmann, Schulze & Foxton, 2009), particularly with shorter tone spans (Williamson & Stewart, 2010).…”

“…However, whether or not the musical pitch deficits in amusia also manifest as pitch-processing deficits in speech is currently debated. Some have argued that individuals with amusia do not have compromised interpretation and discrimination of Western speech intonation Peretz et al, 2002), whereas others have suggested that the pitch deficits in amusia extend to the processing of emotional prosody (Thompson, 2007) and speech intonation contours (including gliding-pitch analogues extracted from speech intonation; Hutchins, Zarate, Zatorre & Peretz, 2010;Jiang et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2010;Patel, Foxton & Griffiths, 2005;Patel, Wong, Foxton, Lochy & Peretz, 2008).…”