Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics
Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia), whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015-06-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00829/full |
| _version_ | 1811296486669942784 |
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| author | Wan Ting Huang Chang eLiu Qi eDong Yun eNan |
| author_facet | Wan Ting Huang Chang eLiu Qi eDong Yun eNan |
| author_sort | Wan Ting Huang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia), whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without behavioral lexical tone deficits. Three groups of listeners (controls, pure amusics and amusics with tone agnosia) participated in tone identification and discrimination tasks. Indexes of the categorical perception of a physical continuum of fundamental frequencies ranging from a rising to level tone were measured. Specifically, the stimulus durations were manipulated at 100 and 200 ms. For both stimulus durations, all groups exhibited similar categorical boundaries. The pure amusics showed sharp identification slopes and significantly peaked discrimination functions similar to those of normal controls. However, such essential characteristics for the categorical perception of lexical tones were not observed in amusics with tone agnosia. An enlarged step-size from 20 Hz to 35 Hz was not able to produce any discrimination peaks in tone agnosics either. The current study revealed that only amusics with tone agnosia showed a lack of categorical tone perception, while the pure amusics demonstrated typical categorical perception of lexical tones, indicating that the deficit of pitch processing in music does not necessarily result in the deficit in the categorical perception of lexical tones. The different performance between congenital amusics with and without tone agnosia provides a new perspective on the proposition of the relationship between music and speech perception. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T05:49:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-20eedb200f1c486db1c1a67b982c8ff0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T05:49:16Z |
| publishDate | 2015-06-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-20eedb200f1c486db1c1a67b982c8ff02022-12-22T02:59:50ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-06-01610.3389/fpsyg.2015.00829147926Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital AmusicsWan Ting Huang0Chang eLiu1Qi eDong2Yun eNan3State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University,University of Texas at AustinState Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University,State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University,Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia), whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without behavioral lexical tone deficits. Three groups of listeners (controls, pure amusics and amusics with tone agnosia) participated in tone identification and discrimination tasks. Indexes of the categorical perception of a physical continuum of fundamental frequencies ranging from a rising to level tone were measured. Specifically, the stimulus durations were manipulated at 100 and 200 ms. For both stimulus durations, all groups exhibited similar categorical boundaries. The pure amusics showed sharp identification slopes and significantly peaked discrimination functions similar to those of normal controls. However, such essential characteristics for the categorical perception of lexical tones were not observed in amusics with tone agnosia. An enlarged step-size from 20 Hz to 35 Hz was not able to produce any discrimination peaks in tone agnosics either. The current study revealed that only amusics with tone agnosia showed a lack of categorical tone perception, while the pure amusics demonstrated typical categorical perception of lexical tones, indicating that the deficit of pitch processing in music does not necessarily result in the deficit in the categorical perception of lexical tones. The different performance between congenital amusics with and without tone agnosia provides a new perspective on the proposition of the relationship between music and speech perception.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00829/fullcategorical perceptionCongenital Amusiatone agnosiaTone discriminationTone identification |
| spellingShingle | Wan Ting Huang Chang eLiu Qi eDong Yun eNan Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics Frontiers in Psychology categorical perception Congenital Amusia tone agnosia Tone discrimination Tone identification |
| title | Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics |
| title_full | Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics |
| title_fullStr | Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics |
| title_short | Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics |
| title_sort | categorical perception of lexical tones in mandarin speaking congenital amusics |
| topic | categorical perception Congenital Amusia tone agnosia Tone discrimination Tone identification |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00829/full |
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