Influence of Mandarin tone exposure on the processing of intonation by 14-year-old American adolescents: An fMRI study

Abstract

This study investigated, for American adolescents, whether the learning of non-native speech contrasts in one prosodic domain (Mandarin Chinese tones) would influence the processing of non-native contrasts in another prosodic domain (Mandarin Chinese intonation). Two groups of 14-year-old American teenagers were tested using the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique, including eight who had received a two-week Mandarin tone training program and eight with no exposure to Mandarin. Subjects were scanned during identification tasks. Despite their similar behavioral performance on identification of Mandarin intonation, preliminary results showed different cortical activation patterns for the two groups. Teenagers exposed to Mandarin showed similar activation patterns for the Mandarin intonation and Mandarin tone task, with more right-hemisphere activation for intonation, which differed from activation for English intonation. Teenagers without exposure activated similar areas for Mandarin and English intonation. Familiarity with Mandarin tonal contrasts affects brain activation, not only for Mandarin tones but also for Mandarin intonation, suggesting that training effects may transcend levels. [Work supported by NIH (HD 37954) and the Talaris Research Institute.]