Detecting contour in short spoken and musical items : a comparison of speakers from tonal and non-tonal languages

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    Contour is characteristic of both spoken and musical events, and extraction of contour enables recognition and discrimination of short musical and spoken items. Based on the rich musicality of the early linguistic environment, we test the hypothesis that perceptual biases such as heightened sensitivity to contour in a tonal language persist into later auditory processing. Our experiments investigate the effect of tonal language background (Thai versus English speakers) on discrimination of contour in the context of tonal (Thai) and non-tonal speech stimuli (English), the musical intervals, and frequency discrimination. As hypothesized, adult participants from a tonal language background were more accurate than non-tonal language participants at discriminating contour in intact words and filtered speech. The effect of language background on discrimination accuracy was upheld for both Thai and English items. However , there was no effect of language background on discrimination of musical intervals, nor was there any evidence of variation in psychophysical thresholds for frequency discrimination. We speculate that the results reflect a form of expertise.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalJournal of Music Perception and Cognition
    Publication statusPublished - 2001

    Keywords

    • auditory discrimination
    • contour
    • expertise
    • music perception
    • tonal language and speech perception

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