Mandarin-speaking Amusics Research Articles

Mandarin-Speaking Amusics' Online Recognition of Tone and Intonation.

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing. Its linguistic consequences have been examined separately for speech intonations and lexical tones. However, in a tonal language such as Chinese, the processing of intonations and lexical tones interacts with each other during online speech perception. Whether and how the musical pitch disorder might affect linguistic pitch processing during online speech perception remains unknown. We investigated this question with intonation (question vs. statement) and lexical tone (rising Tone 2 vs. falling Tone 4) identification tasks using the same set of sentences, comparing behavioral and event-related potential measurements between Mandarin-speaking amusics and matched controls. We specifically focused on the amusics without behavioral lexical tone deficits (the majority, i.e., pure amusics). Results showed that, despite relative to normal performance when tested in word lexical tone test, pure amusics demonstrated inferior recognition than controls during sentence tone and intonation identification. Compared to controls, pure amusics had larger N400 amplitudes in question stimuli during tone task and smaller P600 amplitudes in intonation task. These data indicate that musical pitch disorder affects both tone and intonation processing during sentence processing even for pure amusics, whose lexical tone processing was intact when tested with words.

The Perception of Lexical Tone and Intonation in Whispered Speech by Mandarin-Speaking Congenital Amusics.

A fundamental feature of human speech is variation, including the manner of phonation, as exemplified in the case of whispered speech. In this study, we employed whispered speech to examine an unresolved issue about congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder of musical pitch processing, which also affects speech pitch processing such as lexical tone and intonation perception. The controversy concerns whether amusia is a pitch-processing disorder or can affect speech processing beyond pitch. We examined lexical tone and intonation recognition in 19 Mandarin-speaking amusics and 19 matched controls in phonated and whispered speech, where fundamental frequency (f o) information is either present or absent. The results revealed that the performance of congenital amusics was inferior to that of controls in lexical tone identification in both phonated and whispered speech. These impairments were also detected in identifying intonation (statements/questions) in phonated and whispered modes. Across the experiments, regression models revealed that f o and non-f o (duration, intensity, and formant frequency) acoustic cues predicted tone and intonation recognition in phonated speech, whereas non-f o cues predicted tone and intonation recognition in whispered speech. There were significant differences between amusics and controls in the use of both f o and non-f o cues. The results provided the first evidence that the impairments of amusics in lexical tone and intonation identification prevail into whispered speech and support the hypothesis that the deficits of amusia extend beyond pitch processing. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19302275.

Individuals With Congenital Amusia Show Degraded Speech Perception but Preserved Statistical Learning for Tone Languages.

Individuals with congenital amusia exhibit degraded speech perception. This study examined whether adult Chinese Mandarin listeners with amusia were still able to extract the statistical regularities of Mandarin speech sounds, despite their degraded speech perception. Using the gating paradigm with monosyllabic syllable-tone words, we tested 19 Mandarin-speaking amusics and 19 musically intact controls. Listeners heard increasingly longer fragments of the acoustic signal across eight duration-blocked gates. The stimuli varied in syllable token frequency and syllable-tone co-occurrence probability. The correct syllable-tone word, correct syllable-only, correct tone-only, and correct syllable-incorrect tone responses were compared respectively between the two groups using mixed-effects models. Amusics were less accurate than controls in terms of the correct word, correct syllable-only, and correct tone-only responses. Amusics, however, showed consistent patterns of top-down processing, as indicated by more accurate responses to high-frequency syllables, high-probability tones, and tone errors all in manners similar to those of the control listeners. Amusics are able to learn syllable and tone statistical regularities from the language input. This extends previous work by showing that amusics can track phonological segment and pitch cues despite their degraded speech perception. The observed speech deficits in amusics are therefore not due to an abnormal statistical learning mechanism. These results support rehabilitation programs aimed at improving amusics' sensitivity to pitch.

Individuals with congenital amusia do not show context-dependent perception of tonal categories

Perceptual adaptation is an active cognitive process where listeners re-analyse speech categories based on new contexts/situations/talkers. It involves top-down influences from higher cortical levels on lower-level auditory processes. Individuals with congenital amusia have impaired pitch processing with reduced connectivity between frontal and temporal regions. This study examined whether deficits in amusia would lead to impaired perceptual adaptation in lexical tone perception. Thirteen Mandarin-speaking amusics and 13 controls identified the category of target tones on an 8-step continuum ranging from rising to high-level, either in isolation or in a high-/low-pitched context. For tones with no context, amusics exhibited reduced categorical perception than controls. While controls’ lexical tone categorization demonstrated a significant context effect due to perceptual adaptation, amusics showed similar categorization patterns across both contexts. These findings suggest that congenital amusia impacts the extraction of context-dependent tonal categories in speech perception, indicating that perceptual adaptation may depend on listeners’ perceptual acuity.

Reduced Sensitivity to Between-Category Information but Preserved Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Tone Language Speakers With Congenital Amusia.

Previous studies have shown that for congenital amusics, long-term tone language experience cannot compensate for lexical tone processing difficulties. However, it is still unknown whether such difficulties are merely caused by domain-transferred insensitivity in lower-level acoustic processing and/or by higher-level phonological processing of linguistic pitch as well. The current P300 study links and extends previous studies by uncovering the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning lexical tone perception difficulties in Mandarin-speaking amusics. Both the behavioral index (d′) and P300 amplitude showed reduced within-category as well as between-category sensitivity among the Mandarin-speaking amusics regardless of the linguistic status of the signal. The results suggest that acoustic pitch processing difficulties in amusics are manifested profoundly and further persist into the higher-level phonological processing that involves the neural processing of different lexical tone categories. Our findings indicate that long-term tone language experience may not compensate for the reduced acoustic pitch processing in tone language speakers with amusia but rather may extend to the neural processing of the phonological information of lexical tones during the attentive stage. However, from both the behavioral and neural evidence, the peakedness scores of the d′ and P300 amplitude were comparable between amusics and controls. It seems that the basic categorical perception (CP) pattern of native lexical tones is preserved in Mandarin-speaking amusics, indicating that they may have normal or near normal long-term categorical memory.

Talker Processing in Mandarin-Speaking Congenital Amusics.

Purpose The ability to recognize individuals from their vocalizations is an important trait of human beings. In the current study, we aimed to examine how congenital amusia, an inborn pitch-processing disorder, affects discrimination and identification of talkers' voices. Method Twenty Mandarin-speaking amusics and 20 controls were tested on talker discrimination and identification in four types of contexts that varied in the degree of language familiarity: Mandarin real words, Mandarin pseudowords, Arabic words, and reversed Mandarin speech. Results The language familiarity effect was more evident in the talker identification task than the discrimination task for both participant groups, and talker identification accuracy decreased as native phonological representations were removed from the stimuli. Importantly, amusics demonstrated degraded performance in both native speech conditions that contained phonological/linguistic information to facilitate talker identification and nonnative conditions where talker voice processing primarily relied on phonetics cues, including pitch. Moreover, the performance in talker processing can be predicted by the participants' musical ability and phonological memory capacity. Conclusions The results provided a first set of behavioral evidence that individuals with amusia are impaired in the ability of human voice identification. Meanwhile, it is found that amusia is not only a pitch disorder but is likely to affect the phonological processing of speech, in terms of using phonological information in native speech to analyze a talker's identity. The above findings expanded the understanding of the nature and scope of congenital amusia. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12170379.

Vowel and tone recognition in quiet and in noise among Mandarin-speaking amusics

Music and language are two intricately linked communication modalities in humans. A deficit in music pitch processing as manifested in the condition of congenital amusia has been related to difficulties in lexical tone processing for both tone and non-tonal languages. However, it is still unclear whether amusia also affects the perception of vowel phonemes in quiet and in noise. In this study, we examined vowel-plus-tone identification in quiet and noise conditions among Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without speech tone difficulties (tone agnosics and pure amusics, respectively), and IQ- and age-matched controls. Overall, pure amusics showed vowel and tone identification comparable to the controls in both quiet and noise conditions. Compared to pure amusics and controls, tone agnosics showed deficits in tone perception in both quiet and noise conditions. More importantly, their vowel perception was lower than pure amusics and controls in noise conditions, e.g., at a signal-to-noise ratio of −4 dB, although they showed normal-like performance in quiet and at a signal-to-noise ratio of −8 dB. These results suggest that when amusia affected speech tone processing (e.g., tone agnosics), it could also compromise vowel processing in noise. However, amusia alone does not affect tone or vowel perception in Mandarin Chinese either in quiet or in noise. Overall, the current study highlights the necessity of taking heterogeneity within the amusic group into account when considering the related speech deficits in this group.

Neural differences between the processing of musical meaning conveyed by direction of pitch change and natural music in congenital amusia

Music is a unique communication system for human beings. Iconic musical meaning is one dimension of musical meaning, which emerges from musical information resembling sounds of objects, qualities of objects, or qualities of abstract concepts. The present study investigated whether congenital amusia, a disorder of musical pitch perception, impacts the processing of iconic musical meaning. With a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm, target images were primed by semantically congruent or incongruent musical excerpts, which were characterized by direction (upward or downward) of pitch change (Experiment 1), or were selected from natural music (Experiment 2). Twelve Mandarin-speaking amusics and 12 controls performed a recognition (implicit) and a semantic congruency judgment (explicit) task while their EEG waveforms were recorded. Unlike controls, amusics failed to elicit an N400 effect when musical meaning was represented by direction of pitch change, regardless of the nature of the tasks (implicit versus explicit). However, the N400 effect in response to musical meaning in natural musical excerpts was observed for both the groups in both types of tasks. These results indicate that amusics are able to process iconic musical meaning through multiple acoustic cues in natural musical excerpts, but not through the direction of pitch change. This is the first study to investigate the processing of musical meaning in congenital amusia, providing evidence in support of the “melodic contour deafness hypothesis” with regard to iconic musical meaning processing in this disorder.

Abnormal topological organization of the white matter network in Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia.

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder that mainly affects the processing of musical pitch. Brain imaging evidence indicates that it is associated with abnormal structural and functional connections in the fronto-temporal region. However, a holistic understanding of the anatomical topology underlying amusia is still lacking. Here, we used probabilistic diffusion tensor imaging tractography and graph theory to examine whole brain white matter structural connectivity in 31 Mandarin-speaking amusics and 24 age- and IQ-matched controls. Amusics showed significantly reduced global connectivity, as indicated by the abnormally decreased clustering coefficient (Cp) and increased normalized shortest path length (λ) compared to the controls. Moreover, amusics exhibited enhanced nodal strength in the right inferior parietal lobule relative to controls. The co-existence of the lexical tone deficits was associated with even more deteriorated global network efficiency in amusics, as suggested by the significant correlation between the increments in normalized shortest path length (λ) and the insensitivity in lexical tone perception. Our study is the first to reveal reduced global connectivity efficiency in amusics as well as an increase in the global connectivity cost due to the co-existed lexical tone deficits. Taken together these results provide a holistic perspective on the anatomical substrates underlying congenital amusia.

Subgroup differences in the lexical tone mismatch negativity (MMN) among Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia

The association/dissociation of pitch processing between music and language is a long lasting debate. We examined this music-language relationship by investigating to what extent pitch deficits in these two domains were dissociable. We focused on a special neurodevelopmental pitch disorder — congenital amusia, which primarily affects musical pitch processing. Recent research has also revealed lexical tone deficits in speech among amusics. Approximately one-third of Mandarin amusics exhibits behavioural difficulties in lexical tone perception, which is known as tone agnosia. Using mismatch negativities (MMNs), our current work probed lexical tone encoding at the pre-attentive level among the Mandarin amusics with (tone agnosics) and without (pure amusics) behavioural lexical tone deficits compared with age- and IQ-matched controls. Relative to the controls and the pure amusics, the tone agnosics exhibited reduced MMNs specifically in response to lexical tone changes. Their tone-consonant MMNs were intact and similar to those of the other two groups. Moreover, the tone MMN reduction over the left hemisphere was tightly linked to behavioural insensitivity to lexical tone changes. The current study thus provides the first psychophysiological evidence of subgroup differences in lexical tone processing among Mandarin amusics and links amusics’ behavioural tone deficits to impaired pre-attentive tone processing. Despite the overall music pitch deficits, the subgroup differences in lexical tone processing in Mandarin-speaking amusics suggest dissociation of pitch deficits between music and speech.

Categorical perception of lexical tones in mandarin-speaking congenital amusics.

Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia), whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without behavioral lexical tone deficits. Three groups of listeners (controls, pure amusics, and amusics with tone agnosia) participated in tone identification and discrimination tasks. Indexes of the categorical perception (CP) of a physical continuum of fundamental frequencies ranging from a rising to level tone were measured. Specifically, the stimulus durations were manipulated at 100 and 200 ms. For both stimulus durations, all groups exhibited similar categorical boundaries. The pure amusics showed sharp identification slopes and significantly peaked discrimination functions similar to those of normal controls. However, such essential characteristics for the CP of lexical tones were not observed in amusics with tone agnosia. An enlarged step-size from 20 to 35 Hz was not able to produce any discrimination peaks in tone agnosics either. The current study revealed that only amusics with tone agnosia showed a lack of categorical tone perception, while the pure amusics demonstrated typical CP of lexical tones, indicating that the deficit of pitch processing in music does not necessarily result in the deficit in the CP of lexical tones. The different performance between congenital amusics with and without tone agnosia provides a new perspective on the proposition of the relationship between music and speech perception.

Intonation processing deficits among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: An ERP study

Event Abstract Back to Event Intonation processing deficits among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: An ERP study Xuejing Lu1, 2, Daxing Wu2*, Fang Liu3 and William Forde Thompson1 1 Macquarie University, Department of Psychology, Australia 2 The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Medical Psychological Institute, China 3 The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, China Background: Congenital amusia, a disorder that affects the processing of musical pitch, offers a new perspective to investigate the extent to which pitch processing is shared between music and language. If melodic and linguistic pitch processing draws on partly shared mechanisms, then the melodic pitch processing impairments seen in amusia may be accompanied by deficits in linguistic pitch processing. In the current study, we examined the neural mechanism of intonation processing among mandarin speakers with or without amusia (see also, Wu et al, 2013). Method: 20 amusics and 22 matched controls were asked to discriminate whether the intonation (statement/question) of a pair of disyllabic Chinese words were same or different. EEG was recorded during the tasks. Results: Amusics were impaired at discriminating the intonation of speech (p<0.05). However, there was also a significant main effect of Intonation Pair (p<0.001) and no interaction with group, suggesting that both amusics and controls found certain intonation pair conditions more difficult than others. Furthermore, our sample of amusics showed no impairments on early auditory processing, as suggested by normal P1 and N1 (ps>0.05), but they exhibited a smaller amplitude in ERP in the time window 1200-1500ms (p<0.05). Conclusion: Mandarin-speaking amusics were impaired at discriminating intonation, but the two groups exhibited a similar pattern of performance across intonation pair conditions, and amusics showed no impairments on early auditory processing. Thus, amusics may have normal neural circuitry for processing differences in pitch, but this early processing of pitch apparently does not lead to an advanced and consciousness-involved processing phase. The results may inform discussions of the different levels of processing at which music and language share neural resources. Keywords: Pitch Perception, ERP, Congenital Amusia, intonation processing, Shared neural resources Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Language Citation: Lu X, Wu D, Liu F and Thompson W (2015). Intonation processing deficits among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: An ERP study. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00209 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Prof. Daxing Wu, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Medical Psychological Institute, Changsha, China, wudaxing2017@csu.edu.cn Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Xuejing Lu Daxing Wu Fang Liu William Forde Thompson Google Xuejing Lu Daxing Wu Fang Liu William Forde Thompson Google Scholar Xuejing Lu Daxing Wu Fang Liu William Forde Thompson PubMed Xuejing Lu Daxing Wu Fang Liu William Forde Thompson Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

A music perception disorder (congenital amusia) influences speech comprehension

This study investigated the underlying link between speech and music by examining whether and to what extent congenital amusia, a musical disorder characterized by degraded pitch processing, would impact spoken sentence comprehension for speakers of Mandarin, a tone language. Sixteen Mandarin-speaking amusics and 16 matched controls were tested on the intelligibility of news-like Mandarin sentences with natural and flat fundamental frequency (F0) contours (created via speech resynthesis) under four signal-to-noise (SNR) conditions (no noise, +5, 0, and −5dB SNR). While speech intelligibility in quiet and extremely noisy conditions (SNR=−5dB) was not significantly compromised by flattened F0, both amusic and control groups achieved better performance with natural-F0 sentences than flat-F0 sentences under moderately noisy conditions (SNR=+5 and 0dB). Relative to normal listeners, amusics demonstrated reduced speech intelligibility in both quiet and noise, regardless of whether the F0 contours of the sentences were natural or flattened. This deficit in speech intelligibility was not associated with impaired pitch perception in amusia. These findings provide evidence for impaired speech comprehension in congenital amusia, suggesting that the deficit of amusics extends beyond pitch processing and includes segmental processing.

Training Mandarin-speaking amusics to recognize pitch direction: Pathway to treat musical disorders in congenital amusia?

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder of musical perception and production that has been hypothesized as due to impaired pitch direction recognition. This study investigated whether amusics could be trained to identify pitch direction in speech and music, and if so, whether enhanced pitch direction recognition would benefit musical processing in amusia. Eighteen Mandarin-speaking amusics and 18 matched controls were evaluated using the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (Peretz et al., 2003) and tested on two psychophysical pitch threshold tasks for identification of pitch direction in the Mandarin syllable /ma/ and its piano tone analog. Subsequently, nine of the eighteen amusics undertook a 10-session training program on pitch direction identification in /ma/ and piano tone. Compared with those untrained, trained amusics demonstrated significantly improved thresholds for pitch direction identification in speech syllables [pretest: 2.92 (4.63) semitones; posttest: 0.16 (0.06)], and marginally significant improvement in pitch direction identification thresholds for piano tones [pretest: 5.20 (4.56); posttest: 0.89 (1.46)]. These findings suggest that pitch sensitivity of individuals with congenital amusia could be improved through auditory training, providing evidence for neural plasticity in the amusic brain, which may lead the way to other rehabilitative programs for treating this musical disorder.

Individuals with congenital amusia respond to fractal music differently from normal listeners

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder predominately defined by impaired perception of musical tonal relationships. This study examined amusics’ responses to a gradient of pitch interval complexity in fractal music. Eighteen Mandarin-speaking amusics and 18 controls rated random tone sequences for perceptual (complexity, melodicity) and affective (interest, ease, mood) attributes, and performed a recognition memory task. Sequences were created using fractal model (1/fß) with ß-values ranging from 0.0 (most complex) to 2.6 (least complex). As predicted, both groups rated complexity based on the ß-values, demonstrating that amusics perceived the gradient of pitch interval complexity. However, amusics’ ratings deviated from controls in measures of melodicity, affect, and memory performance. For controls, moderately complex sequences (fractal ß-values =1.4–1.6) were rated the most melodious, drove the highest emotional responses, and were the easiest to remember, whereas amusics’ ratings did not respond to this range, but rather followed a more linear trend. These findings suggest that amusics not only have problems with perception of pitch interval relationships (not complexity), but also lack heightened sensitivity to the moderate range in fractal music. This deficit is reflected in broader musical processing including the perception of melody, affective response, and memory for musical sequences. [This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant BCS-0719666 to P.C.M.W. and Shanghai Normal University funding to C.J.]