Hemispheric processing of tones by listeners with or without tone experience.

Abstract

Tones are used phonemically in many languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Norwegian. Previous research [Wang et al. (2004)] revealed left hemispheric preference for Mandarin listeners in the processing of native tones, but no preference for either Norwegian or English listeners, even though the latter two differed in familiarity with tones. The current study examined hemispheric processing of Mandarin tones by 20 native listeners each of Mandarin, Thai, and English. The Thai listeners had experience only with Thai tones, while the English listeners had no tone experience. In a two-response dichotic listening paradigm, listeners reported the tone they heard in each ear. The pooled results across tones indicated left hemispheric preference for the Mandarin listeners, no hemispheric preference for the Thai listeners, and right hemispheric preference for the English listeners. The findings suggest that native tone experience may increase left hemisphere involvement in the processing of tones in another tone language, whereas lack of tone experience in the native language tends to be linked to non-linguistic hemispheric lateralization of tone processing. [Work supported by SSHRC.]