Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones and Stops in Mandarin-Speaking Musicians and Nonmusicians

Junzhou Ma, Jiaqiang Zhu, Xiaoguang Yao and Yang Chen

SAGE Open, 2024, vol. 14, issue 1, 21582440241227703

Abstract: This study investigates the perception of Mandarin lexical tones and stops to examine the degree of overlap between music and language. Eighteen musicians and 21 nonmusicians participated in a typical categorical perception task. Results showed that musicians and nonmusicians had comparable degree of categorical perception of tones and stops. Compared to nonmusicians, musicians exhibited enhanced sensitivities to within-category lexical tone stimuli. However, this improved ability was not observed in the perception of stops. These findings imply that musical experience strengthens the acuity of subtle low-level acoustic variations between within-category lexical tone stimuli without interfering with the high-level phonological representations of lexical tones, and this facilitatory effect is selective and could not readily extend to stop consonants in native language.

Keywords: categorical perception; lexical tone; stop; musician; Mandarin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:1:p:21582440241227703

DOI: 10.1177/21582440241227703

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