%0 Journal Article %1 Kaan2008 %A Kaan, Edith %A Barkley, Christopher M %A Bao, Mingzhen %A Wayland, Ratree %D 2008 %J BMC Neuroscience %K (Psychology),Discrimination (Psychology): Acoustic Behavior,Verbal Behavior: Perception,Auditory Perception,Pitch Perception,Speech Perception: Potentials,Evoked Potentials: States,Verbal Stimulation,Adult,Auditory Tests,Male,Phonetics,Pitch Time,Reaction Time: methods,Thailand,United physiology physiology,Brain,Brain: physiology,China,Discrimination physiology,Electroencephalography,Evoked physiology,Female,Humans,Language,Language physiology,Reaction physiology,Speech physiology,Teaching,Teaching: %P 53 %R 10.1186/1471-2202-9-53 %T Thai lexical tone perception in native speakers of Thai, English and Mandarin Chinese: an event-related potentials training study %U http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18573210 %V 9 %X BACKGROUND: Tone languages such as Thai and Mandarin Chinese use differences in fundamental frequency (F0, pitch) to distinguish lexical meaning. Previous behavioral studies have shown that native speakers of a non-tone language have difficulty discriminating among tone contrasts and are sensitive to different F0 dimensions than speakers of a tone language. The aim of the present ERP study was to investigate the effect of language background and training on the non-attentive processing of lexical tones. EEG was recorded from 12 adult native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, 12 native speakers of American English, and 11 Thai speakers while they were watching a movie and were presented with multiple tokens of low-falling, mid-level and high-rising Thai lexical tones. High-rising or low-falling tokens were presented as deviants among mid-level standard tokens, and vice versa. EEG data and data from a behavioral discrimination task were collected before and after a two-day perceptual categorization training task. RESULTS: Behavioral discrimination improved after training in both the Chinese and the English groups. Low-falling tone deviants versus standards elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN) in all language groups. Before, but not after training, the English speakers showed a larger MMN compared to the Chinese, even though English speakers performed worst in the behavioral tasks. The MMN was followed by a late negativity, which became smaller with improved discrimination. The High-rising deviants versus standards elicited a late negativity, which was left-lateralized only in the English and Chinese groups. CONCLUSION: Results showed that native speakers of English, Chinese and Thai recruited largely similar mechanisms when non-attentively processing Thai lexical tones. However, native Thai speakers differed from the Chinese and English speakers with respect to the processing of late F0 contour differences (high-rising versus mid-level tones). In addition, native speakers of a non-tone language (English) were initially more sensitive to F0 onset differences (low-falling versus mid-level contrast), which was suppressed as a result of training. This result converges with results from previous behavioral studies and supports the view that attentive as well as non-attentive processing of F0 contrasts is affected by language background, but is malleable even in adult learners.

@article{Kaan2008, abstract = {BACKGROUND: Tone languages such as Thai and Mandarin Chinese use differences in fundamental frequency (F0, pitch) to distinguish lexical meaning. Previous behavioral studies have shown that native speakers of a non-tone language have difficulty discriminating among tone contrasts and are sensitive to different F0 dimensions than speakers of a tone language. The aim of the present ERP study was to investigate the effect of language background and training on the non-attentive processing of lexical tones. EEG was recorded from 12 adult native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, 12 native speakers of American English, and 11 Thai speakers while they were watching a movie and were presented with multiple tokens of low-falling, mid-level and high-rising Thai lexical tones. High-rising or low-falling tokens were presented as deviants among mid-level standard tokens, and vice versa. EEG data and data from a behavioral discrimination task were collected before and after a two-day perceptual categorization training task. RESULTS: Behavioral discrimination improved after training in both the Chinese and the English groups. Low-falling tone deviants versus standards elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN) in all language groups. Before, but not after training, the English speakers showed a larger MMN compared to the Chinese, even though English speakers performed worst in the behavioral tasks. The MMN was followed by a late negativity, which became smaller with improved discrimination. The High-rising deviants versus standards elicited a late negativity, which was left-lateralized only in the English and Chinese groups. CONCLUSION: Results showed that native speakers of English, Chinese and Thai recruited largely similar mechanisms when non-attentively processing Thai lexical tones. However, native Thai speakers differed from the Chinese and English speakers with respect to the processing of late F0 contour differences (high-rising versus mid-level tones). In addition, native speakers of a non-tone language (English) were initially more sensitive to F0 onset differences (low-falling versus mid-level contrast), which was suppressed as a result of training. This result converges with results from previous behavioral studies and supports the view that attentive as well as non-attentive processing of F0 contrasts is affected by language background, but is malleable even in adult learners.}, added-at = {2011-03-27T17:20:41.000+0200}, author = {Kaan, Edith and Barkley, Christopher M and Bao, Mingzhen and Wayland, Ratree}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/28bebf47d24a20f18ed524750c249830f/yevb0}, doi = {10.1186/1471-2202-9-53}, file = {:Kaan et al._2008_Thai lexical tone perception in native speakers of Thai, English and Mandarin Chinese an event-related potentials training study.pdf:PDF}, interhash = {619af9ca2a0bede77de06c0f3af5624e}, intrahash = {8bebf47d24a20f18ed524750c249830f}, issn = {1471-2202}, journal = {BMC Neuroscience}, keywords = {(Psychology),Discrimination (Psychology): Acoustic Behavior,Verbal Behavior: Perception,Auditory Perception,Pitch Perception,Speech Perception: Potentials,Evoked Potentials: States,Verbal Stimulation,Adult,Auditory Tests,Male,Phonetics,Pitch Time,Reaction Time: methods,Thailand,United physiology physiology,Brain,Brain: physiology,China,Discrimination physiology,Electroencephalography,Evoked physiology,Female,Humans,Language,Language physiology,Reaction physiology,Speech physiology,Teaching,Teaching:}, pages = 53, pmid = {18573210}, timestamp = {2011-03-27T17:20:55.000+0200}, title = {Thai lexical tone perception in native speakers of Thai, English and Mandarin Chinese: an event-related potentials training study}, url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18573210}, volume = 9, year = 2008 }