Individual variability in cue-weighting and lexical tone learning

Chandrasekaran, Bharath; Sampath, Padma D.; Wong, Patrick C. M.

doi:10.1121/1.3445785

Cited by 163 publications

(196 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…Recall that the overall pitch of the onset contour to a 51 tone is slightly lower than the onset contour to a 55 tone. However, this difference is not enough for to allow subjects to distinguish between the two high tones, supporting the findings in Chandrasekaran et al [2010] and Huang [2001] that pitch height has a lower perceptual weight for Mandarin speakers. When the onset contour is low (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 64%

“…The first reason is that onset contours are realized with a rising, falling or level pitch which are the most salient perceptual cues (i.e. pitch shape) for identifying Mandarin lexical tones [Chandrasekaran et al, 2010;Gandour, 1981Gandour, , 1983Guion and Pederson, 2007;Huang, 2001]. As indicated in figure 2 when a 51 tone is followed by different lexical tones, the pitch shapes of the onset contours during the nasal in the second syllable are contrastive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sonorant Onset Pitch as a Perceptual Cue of Lexical Tones in Mandarin

Chen

Tucker²

2013

Phonetica

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Lexical tone identification requires a number of secondary cues, when main tonal contours are unavailable. In this article, we examine Mandarin native speakers' ability to identify lexical tones by extracting tonal information from sonorant onset pitch (onset contours) on syllable-initial nasals ranging from 50to 70 ms in duration. In experiments I and II we test speakers' ability to identify lexical tones in a second syllable with and without onset contours in isolation (experiment I) and in a sentential context (experiment II). The results indicate that speakers can identify lexical tones with short distinctive onset contour patterns,they also indicate that misperception of tones 213 and 24 are common. Furthermore, in experiment III, we test whether onset contours in a following syllable can be utilized by listeners in tone identification. We find that onset contours in the following syllable also contribute to the identification of the target lexical tones. The conclusions are twofold: (1) Mandarin lexical tones can be identified with onset contours; (2) tonal domain must be extended to include not just typical cues of tones but also coarticulated tonal patterns.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sonorant Onset Pitch as a Perceptual Cue of Lexical Tones in Mandarin

Chen

Tucker²

2013

Phonetica

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“…The L2 word learning procedure used in the current study was similar to that used by Wong et al (2007) and Chandrasekaran, Sampath, and Wong (2010). The learners underwent 18 training sessions (three per week) in six weeks and learned 48 Chinese pseudowords (see a complete list of the stimuli in Table 1).…”

Section: Stimuli and Training Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural changes underlying successful second language word learning: An fMRI study

Yang

Gates

Molenaar

et al. 2015

Journal of Neurolinguistics

124

100

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a b s t r a c tA great deal of research has examined behavioral performance changes associated with second language learning. But what changes are taking place in the brain as learning progresses? How can we identify differences in brain changes that reflect successes of learning? To answer these questions, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to examine the neural activities associated with second language word learning. Participants were 39 native English speakers who had no prior knowledge of Chinese or other tonal language, and were trained to learn a novel tonal vocabulary in a six-week training session. Functional MRI scans as well as behavioral performances were obtained from these learners at two different times (pre-and post-training). We performed region of interest (ROI) and connectivity analyses to identify effective connectivity changes associated with success in second language word learning. We compared a learner group with a control group, and also examined the differences between successful learners and less successful learners within the learner group across the two time points. Our results indicated that (1) after training, learners and non-learners rely on different patterns of brain networks to process tonal and lexical information of target L2 words; (2) within the learner group, successful learners compared to less successful learners showed significant differences in language-related regions; and (3) successful learners

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“…Participants identified the pitch contours they heard by matching the auditory stimuli to representative arrows on the computer screen (!, %, &). Previous work suggests that participants who perform above a 70% criterion on the PCPT are likely to successfully learn a novel lexical tone contrast based on pitch contour (Wong and Perrachione, 2007;Song et al, 2008;Chandrasekaran et al, 2010). As such, we divided participants into two groups based on whether they were likely to successfully master the vocabulary [High-Aptitude Learners (HAL), N ¼ 31, PCPT > 70%], or attain only a lower level of achievement [Low-Aptitude Learners (LAL), N ¼ 33, PCPT 70%].…”

Section: Pretraining Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Perrachione

Lee

et al. 2011

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

244

350

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Studies evaluating phonological contrast learning typically investigate either the predictiveness of specific pretraining aptitude measures or the efficacy of different instructional paradigms. However, little research considers how these factors interact-whether different students learn better from different types of instruction-and what the psychological basis for any interaction might be. The present study demonstrates that successfully learning a foreign-language phonological contrast for pitch depends on an interaction between individual differences in perceptual abilities and the design of the training paradigm. Training from stimuli with high acoustic-phonetic variability is generally thought to improve learning; however, we found high-variability training enhanced learning only for individuals with strong perceptual abilities. Learners with weaker perceptual abilities were actually impaired by high-variability training relative to a low-variability condition. A second experiment assessing variations on the high-variability training design determined that the property of this learning environment most detrimental to perceptually weak learners is the amount of trialby-trial variability. Learners' perceptual limitations can thus override the benefits of high-variability training where trial-by-trial variability in other irrelevant acoustic-phonetic features obfuscates access to the target feature. These results demonstrate the importance of considering individual differences in pretraining aptitudes when evaluating the efficacy of any speech training paradigm.

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Individual variability in cue-weighting and lexical tone learning

Cited by 163 publications

References 36 publications

Sonorant Onset Pitch as a Perceptual Cue of Lexical Tones in Mandarin

Sonorant Onset Pitch as a Perceptual Cue of Lexical Tones in Mandarin

Neural changes underlying successful second language word learning: An fMRI study

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

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