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Native language background affects the perception of duration and pitch
Siqi Lyu1, Nele Põldver1, Liis Kask1
1Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
Brain and Language
|September 5, 2024
Summary
Native language shapes how we perceive sound. Estonian speakers excel at duration-pitch cues, while Chinese speakers show better pitch discrimination, demonstrating language
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psychoacoustics
- Auditory Perception
Background:
- Estonian utilizes phonological duration and pitch, while Chinese relies predominantly on pitch (tonal language).
- Native language phonology influences the processing of acoustic cues like duration and pitch.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how native language background (Estonian vs. Chinese) impacts the perception of duration, pitch, and combined duration-pitch information.
- To determine if language background effects on auditory perception extend beyond speech sounds.
Main Methods:
- Mismatch negativity (MMN) experiment to assess automatic neural responses to auditory stimuli.
- Behavioral discrimination tasks to measure perceptual abilities for duration, pitch, and combined cues.
Main Results:
- Chinese participants treated Estonian duration cues as non-phonological, but showed superior pitch discrimination.
- Estonian participants outperformed Chinese participants in discriminating non-speech pure tones with both duration and pitch information.
Conclusions:
- Native language background significantly influences the perception of duration and pitch.
- The effects of native language on auditory perception are not limited to speech sound processing and generalize to non-speech auditory stimuli.
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