Abstract
Pitch variation is pervasive in speech, regardless of the language to which infants are exposed. Lexical tone is influenced by general sensitivity to pitch. We examined whether the development in lexical tone perception may develop in parallel with perception of pitch in other cognitive domains namely music. Using a visual fixation paradigm, 100 and one 4- and 12-month-old Dutch infants were tested on their discrimination of Chinese rising and dipping lexical tones as well as comparable three-note musical pitch contours. The 4-month-old infants failed to show a discrimination effect in either condition, whereas the 12-month-old infants succeeded in both conditions. These results suggest that lexical tone perception may reflect and relate to general pitch perception abilities, which may serve as a basis for developing more complex language and musical skills.
Highlights
The perceptual reorganization hypothesis assumes that acquiring native phonology involves learning the specific phonemic contrasts present in the to-be-learned language, whereas sensitivity to non-native contrasts gradually decreases
By 10 months, native Japanese infants’ brain responses to pitch accents realized on words and to pure tones whose fundamental frequency was extracted from these words showed different lateralization patterns (Sato et al, 2010). These findings suggest that pitch perception develops in a domain specific manner
We investigate whether development observed in lexical tone perception may reflect general sensitivity to pitch, in the current study
Summary
The perceptual reorganization hypothesis assumes that acquiring native phonology involves learning the specific phonemic contrasts present in the to-be-learned language, whereas sensitivity to non-native contrasts gradually decreases. Such perceptual tuning occurs in the second half of the 1st year (Werker and Tees, 1984; Kuhl et al, 1992). English learning 14-month-old infants are able to learn words that are solely distinguished by lexical tones, and by 19 months, they are still able to discriminate Chinese rising and falling tones (Quam and Swingley, 2010; Hay et al, 2015). It is a fact that non-tone language speakers find lexical tones notoriously difficult
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
