Effects of two training procedures in cross-language perception of tones

Abstract

This study evaluated two training procedures that might be used to increase native English (NE) and native Chinese (NC) listeners' ability to discriminate the mid vs. low tone contrast in Thai under two different inter-stimulus-interval (ISI) conditions (i.e., 500-ms and 1500-ms). Participants were assigned to receive training using either a two-alternative forced-choice identification (ID) procedure or a categorial same/different discrimination (SD) procedure. The results obtained indicated that (a) NC performed significantly better than NE both before and after the training under both ISI conditions, (b) both groups of listeners improved significantly after training and (c) both training procedures (ID and SD) were equally effective in promoting phonological representation of Thai tones among both groups of listeners.

The influence of linguistic and musical experience on Cantonese word learning

“…Many of the world's languages, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, use different pitch patterns (tones) systematically to differentiate words, and these tones are often the only element that can distinguish words from each other (Yip, 2002). Nonnative tones can be a challenging element to perceive, particularly for listeners whose native languages are non-tonal (e.g., English) and who are consequently less accustomed to attending to lexically meaningful pitch information (Lee, Vakoch, and Wurm, 1996;Wayland and Guion, 2004;Wayland and Li, 2008). However, studies have demonstrated that linguistic experience can mediate how certain tones are perceived.…”

Effects of production training and perception training on lexical tone perception – A behavioral and ERP study

“…In other training studies (e.g. Wang et al, 1999;Wayland and Li, 2008;Baese-Berk, 2010), participants usually received at least two sessions of training with each session lasting at least one hour. In our study, the perception-plus-production training only took one hour, during which the participants were only allowed to imitate each BRES : 44353 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204...…”

“…However, these perceptual and production difficulties that confront native speakers of non-tonal languages are not insuperable. Several behavioral and electrophysiological studies have shown that short-term perceptual and production training are effective in improving the comprehension and production of lexical tones by native speakers of non-tonal languages (Kaan et al, 2007(Kaan et al, , 2008Leather, 1990;Song et al, 2008;Wang et al, 1999;Wayland and Guion, 2004;Wayland and Li, 2008). Moreover, the effects of perception training and production training may be inter-transferable (Wang et al, 2003;Leather, 1990).…”

Learning a novel phonological contrast depends on interactions between individual differences and training paradigm design

“…Success at second-language learning has been compared across a variety of training methodologies, including laboratory-based (Wayland and Li, 2008;Hardison, 2003;Lively et al, 1993) and classroombased studies (Norris and Ortega, 2001). However, little work in the field of speech or second-language learning has addressed whether learners with different pretraining aptitudes might differentially benefit from these various training paradigm designs.…”