Within-organ contrast in second language perception: The perception of Russian initial /r-l/ contrast by Chinese learners

Development of perceptual similarity and discriminability: the perception of Russian phonemes by Chinese learners

This study explored the perceptual assimilation and discrimination of Russian phonemes by three groups of Chinese listeners with differing Russian learning experience. A perceptual assimilation task (PAT) and a perceptual discrimination test (PDT) were conducted to investigate if/how L1-L2 perceptual similarity would vary as a function of increased learning experience, and the development of assimilation-discrimination relations. The PAT was analyzed via assimilation rates, dispersion K' values, goodness ratings and assimilation patterns. Results revealed an intriguing phenomenon that the perceived Mandarin-Russian similarity first increased from naïve listeners to intermediate learners and then decreased slightly in relatively advanced learners. This suggests that L1-L2 perceptual similarity is subject to learning experience and could follow a potential "rise and fall" developmental pattern. The PDT results were mostly in line with the assimilation-discrimination correspondence with more experience bringing out better discriminability in general. Yet the overall sensitivity d' values from the Chinese groups were relatively low, implying acoustic/articulatory effects on L2 discriminability aside from perceptual assimilation. The results were discussed under the frameworks of L2 Perceptual Assimilation Model, Speech Learning Model and L2 Linguistic Perception Model.

The effects of native prosodic system and segmental context on Cantonese tone perception by Mandarin and Japanese listeners

This study explores the effects of native prosodic system and segmental context on the perception of Cantonese tones by Mandarin and Japanese listeners. In Experiment 1, 13 Mandarin and 13 Japanese subjects took part in a two-alternative forced-choice discrimination test of Cantonese tones in different segmental contexts (familiar vs unfamiliar). In Experiment 2, 20 Mandarin listeners participated in a perceptual assimilation task that examined the cross-language perceptual similarity between Mandarin and Cantonese tones. Results showed that Mandarin listeners were comparable to Japanese counterparts in discriminability, but the former attended more to pitch contour differences while the latter were more sensitive to pitch height. Moreover, the effect of segmental context was significant exclusively in the Mandarin group, whereas the Japanese group performed stably across syllables in discriminating Cantonese tones. It seemed that unfamiliar context rendered lower perceptual similarity, which further hindered corresponding discrimination by the Mandarin group. In addition, segmental effects were mainly observed in the assimilation patterns of category goodness or uncategorized-categorized. These findings suggested that non-native tone perception could be modulated by listeners' native prosodic structures in a finer way.

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

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.