Mandarin tone learning in L2 adults: A test of perceptual and sensorimotor contributions

The effects of language learning and vocal training on sensorimotor control of lexical tone

“…Two of the L2 learners (participants 22 and 24; see Appendix A) even had degradation rather than advancement throughout the task. This lack of advantage for L2 experience contrasts with the perceptual results of Ning et al (2014), in which L2 learners showed better perception than naïve speakers. Possible reasons for this different finding include the new task introduced herein, which may have been more difficult.…”

“…Although a mechanism for attenuation can only be speculated upon herein, the more neutral term attenuation resembles a suppression effect, in which neural mechanisms actively suppress responses (the nature of which cannot be determined herein). The attenuation effect bears a certain similarity to that found by Ning et al (2014), who reported that Mandarin speakers were less affected by the magnitude and direction of pitch-shift stimuli (/a/) than were naïve speakers and L2 learners. The attenuation of Mandarin speakers' responses suggests that their internal models of tone are different from those of naïve speakers.…”

“…An attenuation effect suggests that experienced singers may be able to block out potentially perturbing feedback to remain on key. An attenuation effect in pitch-shift responses to sustained vowels was also found in Mandarin speakers, whose F0 contours were more stable and less affected by stimulus magnitude than those of English speakers and L2 learners of Mandarin (Ning et al, 2014). Attenuation effects in both experienced singers and Mandarin speakers (see above) raise the possibility that experience controlling vocal tone has the potential to facilitate an ability to 'ignore' or 'cancel out' potentially disruptive sensory feedback.…”

“…On the other hand, the same research group (Liu, Xu, & Larson, 2009) later showed a contrasting attenuation in pitch perturbation when Mandarin speakers produced Mandarin bitonal sequences. This attenuation also appears to occur when Mandarin speakers vocalize the sustained vowel /a/ (Ning, Shih, & Loucks, 2014), although a different measure of attenuation (F0 contour) was used in that study. The trend of attenuation rather than enhancement is considered the more typical finding in pitch-shift research.…”

“…Ning et al (2014) conducted an initial study to compare the vocal responses of speakers with or without tonal language experience (English speakers vs. Mandarin speakers) and extended the question to the field of second language learning (L2 learners of Mandarin). The pitch-shift response patterns of L2 learners differed from those of both Mandarin speakers and English speakers, suggesting that L2 learners were in the progress of language learning but had not acquired nativelike response patterns.…”