Human cortical encoding of pitch in tonal and non-tonal languages

Yuanning Li, Claire Tang, Junfeng Lu, Jinsong Wu () and Edward F. Chang ()
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Yuanning Li: University of California
Claire Tang: University of California
Junfeng Lu: Neurosurgical Institute of Fudan University
Jinsong Wu: Neurosurgical Institute of Fudan University
Edward F. Chang: University of California

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Languages can use a common repertoire of vocal sounds to signify distinct meanings. In tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, pitch contours of syllables distinguish one word from another, whereas in non-tonal languages, such as English, pitch is used to convey intonation. The neural computations underlying language specialization in speech perception are unknown. Here, we use a cross-linguistic approach to address this. Native Mandarin- and English- speaking participants each listened to both Mandarin and English speech, while neural activity was directly recorded from the non-primary auditory cortex. Both groups show language-general coding of speaker-invariant pitch at the single electrode level. At the electrode population level, we find language-specific distribution of cortical tuning parameters in Mandarin speakers only, with enhanced sensitivity to Mandarin tone categories. Our results show that speech perception relies upon a shared cortical auditory feature processing mechanism, which may be tuned to the statistics of a given language.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21430-x

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