Question or tone 2? : How language experience and linguistic function guide pitch processing.

How does language experience shape pitch processing? Do speakers of tone languages, which use pitch to signal lexical contrasts (e.g., Mandarin Chinese) attend to pitch movements more closely than speakers of intonation languages (e.g., English)? Contradictory findings have been reported in the literature. In the current study, we hypothesize that listeners should be particularly attentive to any pitch information that signals meaningful information in the native language. This includes pitch movements signaling lexical contrasts (present in tone languages only) as well as postlexical contrast... Mehr ...