Lexical tone awareness in Chinese children with developmental dyslexia

This study examined the extent and nature of lexical tone deficit in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Twenty Cantonese-speaking Chinese dyslexic children (mean age 8;11) were compared to twenty average readers of the same age (CA control group, mean age 8;11), and another twenty younger average readers of the same word reading level (RL control group, mean age 7;4) on different measures of lexical tone awareness, rhyme awareness and visual-verbal paired-associate learning. Results showed that the Chinese dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the CA but not the RL control groups in nearly all the lexical tone and rhyme awareness measures. Analyses of individual performance demonstrated that over one-third of the dyslexic children showed a deficit in some aspects of tone awareness. Tone discrimination and tone production were found to correlate significantly with Chinese word reading. These findings confirm that Chinese dyslexic children show weaknesses in tone awareness.published_or_final_versio

The role of lexical tone in spoken word recognition of Chinese

The present study used a direct priming task in order to investigate the nature and processing of tonal information in spoken word recognition of Chinese. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, prime-target pairs contrasted in terms of tonal and segmental overlap. Experiment 1 replicated the first experiment of C.-Y. Lee's (2007) study but with a significant modification that balanced tonal information in prime-target pairs. Forty-eight monosyllabic Mandarin target words were paired with four types of primes in which prime and target were identical (e.g., bo1- bo1), shared only segmental information (e.g., bo1 -bo2), shared only tonal information (e.g., bo1 -zhua1) or were unrelated (e.g., bo1 -man3). Experiment 2 extended the prime-target paradigm to include minimal segmental overlap in onset and in offset portion. Forty-eight monosyllabic Mandarin target words were paired with four types of primes in which prime and target were identical (e.g., bo1- bo1), shared tonal and only onset segmental information (e.g., bo1 -bin1), shared tonal and only offset segmental information (e.g., bo1 -po1) or were unrelated (e.g., bo1 -man3). The results of Experiment 1 showed that the facilitation effect was found when the prime-target pairs were identical or segmental structure overlapped compared to conditions where the prime-target pairs only overlapped in tone or were unrelated. Effects of similarity of tone across prime-target segmental pairs were also analyzed. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the facilitation effect was only found when the prime-target pairs were identical. Partial segmental overlap in conjunction with tone resulted in inhibition compared to an unrelated control. Together, these data indicate that segmental information can facilitate word recognition, with segmental information carrying more weight than tonal information in the processing of spoken Chinese

Separability of tones and rhymes in Chinese speech perception : Evidence from perceptual migrations

This study used the perceptual-migration paradigm to explore whether Mandarin tones and syllable rhymes are processed separately during Mandarin speech perception. Following the logic of illusory conjunctions, we calculated the cross-ear migration of tones, rhymes, and their combination in Chinese and English listeners. For Chinese listeners, tones migrated more than rhymes. The opposite pattern was found for English listeners. The results lend empirical support to autosegmental theory, which claims separability and mobility between tonal and segmental representations. They also provide evidence that such representations and their involvement in perception are deeply shaped by a listener’s linguistic experience

Temporal relation between top-down and bottom-up processing in lexical tone perception

Speech perception entails both top-down processing that relies primarily on language experience and bottom-up processing that depends mainly on instant auditory input. Previous models of speech perception often claim that bottom-up processing occurs in an early time window, whereas top-down processing takes place in a late time window after stimulus onset. In this paper, we evaluated the temporal relation of both types of processing in lexical tone perception. We conducted a series of event-related potential (ERP) experiments that recruited Mandarin participants and adopted three experimental paradigms, namely dichotic listening, lexical decision with phonological priming, and semantic violation. By systematically analyzing the lateralization patterns of the early and late ERP components that are observed in these experiments, we discovered that: auditory processing of pitch variations in tones, as a bottom-up effect, elicited greater right hemisphere activation; in contrast, linguistic processing of lexical tones, as a top-down effect, elicited greater left hemisphere activation. We also found that both types of processing co-occurred in both the early (around 200 ms) and late (around 300–500 ms) time windows, which supported a parallel model of lexical tone perception. Unlike the previous view that language processing is special and performed by dedicated neural circuitry, our study have elucidated that language processing can be decomposed into general cognitive functions (e.g., sensory and memory) and share neural resources with these functions.published_or_final_versio

Towards a Model of Second Language Word Production and Recognition in Mandarin

Abstract The production and recognition of Mandarin words by Cantonese speakers are influenced by the pronunciation correspondences between Cantonese and Mandarin in all sublexical levels (i.e., onset, rime and tone). A three-route second language word production and recognition model is proposed using these pronunciation correspondences. Introduction It is well documented (e.g., Lado, 1967) that second language (L2) speech produced b

Cross-linguistic perception of pitch of Chinese dyslexic children

This study examined the relationship between perception of basic auditory processing measures, detection of suprasegmental features and bilingual literacy among Hong Kong children with and without reading difficulties. Sixty native Cantonese speakers with the average age of 7; 11 participated in the study. Forty-four children were age-matched controls and 16 of them were diagnosed to have dyslexia. A series of tasks assessing auditory processing ability, detection of suprasegmental features of both Chinese and English and literacy were given all participants. Tone detection was the strongest predictor to all the scores of Chinese literacy task. There was no significant difference in sensitivity to English prosody task between groups. For auditory processing measures, significant differences between groups were only found in 1 rise and intensity task. Regression analysis showed that auditory threshold of rise time discrimination predicted 20% unique variance of sensitivity to tone detection. We concluded that detection of lexical tone in Chinese was an important linguistic marker that may help diagnose children with reading difficulties in Chinese. Normal children made use of intensity cues to detect rise time. Suggestions were also made to improve the validity of English prosody sensitivity task.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

Online processing of tone and intonation in Mandarin: Evidence from ERPs

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

THE USE OF SEGMENTAL AND SUPRASEGMENTAL INFORMATION IN LEXICAL ACCESS: A FIRST- AND SECOND-LANGUAGE CHINESE INVESTIGATION

The present study investigated first language (L1) and second language (L2) Chinese categorization of tones and segments and use of tones and segments in lexical access. Previous research has shown that English listeners rely more on pitch height than pitch direction when perceiving lexical tones; however, it remains unclear if this superior use of pitch height aids English-speaking learners of Chinese in identifying the tones of Chinese that differ in initial pitch height. The present study aimed to investigate this issue to determine whether this pitch height advantage aids English-speaking Chinese learners in identifying the tones of Chinese by looking at the time course of categorization of Chinese tones that differed in initial pitch as well as segments. A norming study was first conducted to investigate the duration of acoustic input needed to hear tone and segment (rime) distinctions. In a gated AX discrimination task, native Chinese listeners and naïve English listeners heard increasingly large fragments of tonal pairs and segmental pairs that varied in the expected disambiguation point. The results of this norming study were used to select tonal and segmental stimulus pairs were controlled (as best as is possible) for the disambiguation timing in the next two experiments. Experiment 1 investigated the time course of categorization of tones and segments using a forced-choice gating task designed to tap into listeners’ identification of fragment categories taken from syllables that differ only in tones or only in segments. Native Chinese listeners and L1-English L2-Chinese listeners heard a single fragment of a Chinese word and identified either the tone or the rime of the heard fragment from two presented options. The results showed that the segmental contrasts had higher accuracy than tonal contrasts for both groups. The L2-Chinese listeners performed comparably to the native listeners on both tonal and segmental contrasts, and L2 Chinese listeners showed no advantage over native listeners. The second goal of this study was to investigate the time course of the use of tones and segments in lexical access. Previous work has shown that native Chinese listeners use tones and segments simultaneously in lexical access. Previous work on how second language learners of Chinese use tones in lexical access compared to segments showed that tones and segments are used at the same time; however, work in the segmental domain suggest that this should not be the case, and learners should struggle to use the new tones in online lexical access. As such, this work aimed to reinvestigate the timing of use of tones and segments in second language Chinese, as well as to compare learners’ use of tones and segments to native listeners with a highly time-sensitive measure: visual-world eye-tracking. Experiment 2 investigated the time course of use of tones and segments in online spoken word recognition for L1 and L2 groups. The same segmental and tonal pairs used in Experiment 1 were used in a visual-world eye-tracking experiment. Native Chinese listeners and L1-English L2-Chinese listeners saw two pairs of words displayed as corresponding images: one tonal pair and one segmental pair. Eye movements were recorded as participants heard a single target word in isolation and clicked on the corresponding picture. The eye movement data revealed that native Chinese listeners use tones and segments to begin constraining the lexical search at approximately the same time, and tonal information constrained the search more rapidly than did segments. The L2-Chinese learners showed segmental use comparable to that of native listeners; however, their tonal use was delayed by approximately 100 ms. In terms of speed, learners also showed more rapid use of tones in constraining the lexical search, although tones and segments were used to constrain the lexical search more slowly than they did for native listeners. These results are discussed in relation to recent L1 studies on lexical access of tones and segments and computational modeling of suprasegmental information. The results of this research is in line with previous work that showed tones and segments are used to constrain lexical access simultaneously; however, the current work does not support the conclusion that tones and segments are used in the same way, with tones constraining the lexical search faster than segments. It is suggested that the cause of this tone speed advantage is the number of competitors removed from competition when the processor is certain of a tone as opposed to certain of a segment or even rime. The present results also speak to the literature on the use of segmental and suprasegmental information in a second language and suggest that the timing of use of different cues to lexical identity is dependent on if that cue is used in the L1, since segments were processed at the same time as native speakers while tones were delayed. Speed of use seems to be independent of whether or not it is used in the L1, with both tones and segments being processed slower overall compared to native listeners

The role of tonal information during spoken-word recognition in Chinese: Evidence from a printed-word eye-tracking study

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the extent to which the lexical tone can affect spoken-word recognition in Chinese using a printed-word paradigm. Participants were presented with a visual display of four words-namely, a target word (e.g., (sic),xiang4xian4, "quadrant"), a tone-consistent phonological competitor (e.g., (sic), xiang4ce4, "photo album"), or a tone-inconsistent phonological competitor (e.g., ,xiang1cai4, "coriander"), and two unrelated distractors. Simultaneously, they were asked to listen to a spoken target word presented in isolation (Experiment1) or embedded in neutral/predictive sentence contexts (Experiment2), and then click on the target word on the screen. Results showed significant phonological competitor effects (i.e., the fixation proportion on the phonological competitor was higher than that on the distractors) under both tone conditions. Specifically, a larger phonological competitor effect was observed in the tone-consistent condition than in the tone-inconsistent condition when the spoken word was presented in isolation and the neutral sentence contexts. This finding suggests a partial role of lexical tone in constraining spoken-word recognition. However, when embedded in a predictive sentence context, the phonological competitor effect was only observed in the tone-consistent condition and absent in the tone-inconsistent condition. This result indicates that the predictive sentence context can strengthen the role of lexical tone