Musical experience and Mandarin tone discrimination and imitation

Abstract

Previous work [T. L. Gottfried and D. Riester, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 2604 (2000)] showed that native speakers of American English with musical training performed better than nonmusicians when identifying the four distinctive tones of Mandarin Chinese (high-level, mid-rising, low-dipping, high-falling). Accuracy for both groups was relatively low since listeners were not trained on the phonemic contrasts. Current research compares musicians and nonmusicians on discrimination and imitation of unfamiliar tones. Listeners were presented with two different Mandarin words that had either the same or different tones; listeners indicated whether the tones were same or different. Thus, they were required to determine a categorical match (same or different tone), rather than an auditory match. All listeners had significantly more difficulty discriminating between mid-rising and low-dipping tones than with other contrasts. Listeners with more musical training showed significantly greater accuracy in their discrimination. Likewise, musicians’ spoken imitations of Mandarin tones (model tokens presented by a native speaker) were rated as significantly more native-like than those of nonmusicians. These findings suggest that musicians may have abilities or training that facilitate their perception and production of Mandarin tones. However, further research is needed to determine whether this advantage transfers to language learning situations.