Abstract
Infants' native and nonnative tone perception was investigated in three studies. In Study 1, 6- and 9-month-old English (non-tone) and Chinese (tone) infants were tested for discrimination of Thai tones in a training procedure. Study 2 examined English and French infants' Thai tone perception in a more natural looking/listening task. Study 3 investigated English infants' discrimination of Mandarin tones. The findings provide robust evidence for the reorganization of tone perception as a function of language experience. Age-related decline in nonnative tone discrimination was found for English and French infants. Chinese infants showed stable tone perception across age.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 621 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | INTERSPEECH 2008 - 9th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association - Brisbane, QLD, Australia Duration: 22 Sept 2008 → 26 Sept 2008 |
Keywords
- Infants
- Lexical tone
- Speech perception