Effects of acoustic and linguistic aspects on Japanese pitch accent processing

Abstract

This study investigates the hemispheric processing of Japanese pitch accent by native and non-native listeners. The non-natives differ in their first (L1) and second (L2) language experience with prosodic pitch, including Mandarin (tonal L1) and English (non-tonal L1) listeners with or without Japanese learning experience. All listeners completed a dichotic listening test in which minimal pairs differing in pitch accent were presented. Overall, the results demonstrate a right hemisphere lateralization across groups, indicating holistic processing of temporal cues as the pitch accent patterns span across disyllabic domain. Moreover, the three pitch accent patterns reveal different degrees of hemispheric dominance, presumably attributable to the acoustic cues to each pattern which involve different hemispheric asymmetries. The results also reveal group difference, reflecting the effects of linguistic experience. Specifically, the English listeners with no Japanese background, compared to the other groups, exhibit greater variance in hemispheric dominance as a function of pitch accent difference, showing a greater reliance on acoustic cues when linguistic information is lacking. Together, the findings suggest an interplay of acoustic and linguistic aspects in the processing of Japanese pitch accent but showing a more prominent acoustic influence. [Research supported by NSERC.]