Categorical perception of Mandarin tones by Cantonese trilingual children

Abstract

It is generally argued that children’s tone perception gradually becomes adult-like after age 6. In addition, previous studies suggest that stimulus duration, vowel quality, and musical training significantly contribute to categorical perception of pitch directions in both tonal and non-tonal language (Chen et al., 2017; Zhao & Kuhl, 2015). However, little is known about how musical training may shape categorical perception of trilingual children, and how stimulus duration and vowel quality come into play. In this paper, we investigate these effects on the categorical perception of Mandarin tones based on Cantonese trilingual children. Specifically, we created rising and falling Mandarin continua on high and low vowels with three duration values. Based on some pilot data, the vowel quality plays a vital role in the categorical perception of rising tones but not in the falling tone pitch directions. Children with professional musical training show much more categorical perception than children without musical training. Specifically, musically trained children show more between-category discrimination than within-category discrimination. Moreover, they are more sensitive to stimulus and are faster in terms of reaction time. Our findings will be compared with previous studies on categorical perception by adults and all significant effects will be discussed.