Musical Expertise and Second Language Learning

Chobert, Julie; Besson, Mireille

doi:10.3390/brainsci3020923

Cited by 65 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 121 publications

(177 reference statements)

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“…In addition, these results suggest that increased auditory sensitivity may be one of the driving forces behind enhanced phonemic perception in musicians. They are in line with previous work showing that musical expertise facilitates the perception and pronunciation of foreign linguistic sounds (Delogu, Lampis, & Belardinelli, ; Gottfried, ; Kühnis et al., ; Milovanov, Pietilä, Tervaniemi, & Esquef, ; Sadakata & Sekiyama, ; Slevc & Miyake, ) and possibly the learning of foreign languages (Chobert & Besson, ; Dittinger, Chobert, Ziegler, & Besson, ; Dittinger et al., ). Taken together, these results have potentially strong societal implications for education because fine perception of nonnative phoneme is an important first step in foreign language learning.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Enhanced neural and behavioural processing of a nonnative phonemic contrast in professional musicians

Dittinger

D’Imperio

Besson

2018

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Based on growing evidence suggesting that professional music training facilitates foreign language perception and learning, we examined the impact of musical expertise on the categorisation of syllables including phonemes that did (/p/, /b/) or did not (/p /) belong to the French repertoire by analysing both behaviour (error rates and reaction times) and Event-Related brain Potentials (N200 and P300 components). Professional musicians and nonmusicians categorised syllables either as /ba/ or /pa/ (voicing task), or as /pa/ or /p a/ with /p / being a nonnative phoneme for French speakers (aspiration task). In line with our hypotheses, results showed that musicians outperformed nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. Moreover, the difference between the native (/p/) and the nonnative phoneme (/p /), as reflected in N200 and P300 amplitudes, was larger in musicians than in nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. These results show that behaviour and brain activity associated to nonnative phoneme perception are influenced by musical expertise and that these effects are task-dependent. The implications of these findings for current models of phoneme perception and for understanding the qualitative and quantitative differences found on the N200 and P300 components are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Enhanced neural and behavioural processing of a nonnative phonemic contrast in professional musicians

Dittinger

D’Imperio

Besson

2018

Eur J of Neuroscience

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“…It is not surprising that musical expertise facilitates speech perception, since music and speech are similar in several ways (Patel, 2010;Besson et al, 2011). For one thing, music and speech are both complex auditory signals based on similar acoustic parameters: both pitch and duration contribute to the melodic and rhythmic aspects of music and to the linguistic functions of speech (Chobert and Besson, 2013). In addition, music and speech processing both require attention, memory, and similar sensorimotor abilities.…”

Section: Tone Perception and Musical Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandarin Tone Identification by Tone-Naïve Musicians and Non-musicians in Auditory-Visual and Auditory-Only Conditions

et al. 2019

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A considerable number of studies have shown that musical ability has a positive effect on language processing. Extending this body of work, this study investigates the effects of musicality and modality on Mandarin tone identification in tone-naïve participants. To examine the effects of visual information in speech, Mandarin tones were presented in auditory-only or auditory-visual modalities to participants with or without musical experience. The Goldsmith Musicality Index was used to assess the musical aptitude of the participants. Overall, musicians outperformed non-musicians in the tone identification task in both auditory-visual and auditory-only conditions. Both groups identified tones more accurately in the auditory-visual condition than in the auditory-only condition. In addition, performance differed by tone: musicality holds its main effect on each level of tone; while the influence of modality differs for individual tones; the identification of tone 3 (a low-falling-rising) proved to be the easiest, while tone 4 (a high-falling tone) was the most difficult to identify for all participants. Out of all the musical skills measured by the Goldsmith Musicality Index, the amount of musical training was the only predictor that had an impact on the accuracy of Mandarin tone perception. These findings suggest that learning to perceive Mandarin tones benefits from musical expertise, and visual information can facilitate Mandarin tone identification, but mainly for tone-naïve non-musicians.

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“…Musical experience has been shown to have significant influence on lexical tone and speech perception due to the similar acoustic parameters, especially frequency and duration, shared between music and speech [1]. A significant number of studies have revealed that musical experience benefits the perception of non-native lexical tones for non-tonal language participants [11], [12].…”

Section: Effect Of Musical Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Linguistic and extra-linguistic factors have been found to influence second language (L2) learning [1]. One of the linguistic factors, the proximity between native language (L1) and L2 phonetic inventory, plays a key role in determining L2 word learning performance [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modulation of musical experience and prosodic complexity on lexical pitch learning

Tong¹,

Tang²

2016

Speech Prosody 2016

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With a non-native (i.e., Thai) pitch-word learning task, the current study examined the impacts of prosodic complexity and musical experience on non-native tone identification and tone word learning by comparing musicians and nonmusicians whose native languages exhibit different prosodic complexity, such as Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. We found that for the pre-training tone identification task, musicians outperformed non-musicians, regardless of their native language background. For the tone word learning task, Cantonese musicians outperformed English musicians at the beginning stage of tone word learning. No significant differences were found among non-musicians in the three languages. However, both Cantonese and Mandarin nonmusicians outperformed English non-musicians in the final stage of learning, yet there was no difference between musicians. These findings underscore that prosodic complexity and musical experience have dynamic roles in influencing tone identification and tone word learning at different stages.

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Musical Expertise and Second Language Learning

Cited by 65 publications

References 121 publications

Enhanced neural and behavioural processing of a nonnative phonemic contrast in professional musicians

Enhanced neural and behavioural processing of a nonnative phonemic contrast in professional musicians

Mandarin Tone Identification by Tone-Naïve Musicians and Non-musicians in Auditory-Visual and Auditory-Only Conditions

Modulation of musical experience and prosodic complexity on lexical pitch learning

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