Perception of lexical tone across languages : Evidence for a linguisticmode of processing

摘要

Pairs of Thai tones were presented for perceptual discrimination inthree linguistic contexts (normal speech, low-pass filtered speech,and as musical (violin) sounds) to tonal language speakers, Thaiand Cantonese, and non-tonal (English) language speakers.English speakers discriminated the tonal contrasts significantlybetter in the musical context than in filtered speech, and in filteredspeech better than in full speech. On the other hand, both Thaiand Cantonese speakers perceived the tonal contrasts equally wellin all three contexts. Thus developmental absence of exposure tolexical tone results in a linguistic mode of processing whichinvolves the attenuation of a basic psychoacoustic ability, pitchdiscrimination.