Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.

While the issue of individual variation has been widely studied in second language learning or processing, it is less well understood how perceptual and musical aptitude differences can explain individual variation in native speech processing. In the current study, we make use of tone merger in Hong...

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Autores principales:	Caicai Zhang, Oi-Yee Ho, Jing Shao, Jinghua Ou, Sam-Po Law
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/c8afe4e570f1451292f2eae968096a32
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:c8afe4e570f1451292f2eae968096a322021-12-02T20:09:44ZDissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0253982https://doaj.org/article/c8afe4e570f1451292f2eae968096a322021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253982https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203While the issue of individual variation has been widely studied in second language learning or processing, it is less well understood how perceptual and musical aptitude differences can explain individual variation in native speech processing. In the current study, we make use of tone merger in Hong Kong Cantonese, an ongoing sound change that concerns the merging of tones in perception, production or both in a portion of native speakers, to examine the possible relationship between tone merger and musical and pitch abilities. Although a previous study has reported the occurrence of tone merger independently of musical training, it has not been investigated before whether tone-merging individuals, especially those merging tones in perception, would have inferior musical perception and fine-grained pitch sensitivities, given the close relationship of speech and music. To this end, we tested three groups of tone-merging individuals with various tone perception and production profiles on musical perception and pitch threshold tasks, in comparison to a group of Cantonese speakers with congenital amusia, and another group of controls without tone merger or amusia. Additionally, the amusics were compared with tone-merging individuals on the details of their tone discrimination and production profiles. The results showed a clear dissociation of tone merger and amusia, with the tone-merging individuals exhibiting intact musical and pitch abilities; on the other hand, the amusics demonstrated widespread difficulties in tone discrimination yet intact tone production, in contrast to the highly selective confusion of a specific tone pair in production or discrimination in tone-merging individuals. These findings provide the first evidence that tone merger and amusia are distinct from each other, and further suggest that the cause of tone merger may lie elsewhere rather than being driven by musical or pitch deficits. We also discussed issues arising from the current findings regarding the neural mechanisms of tone merger and amusia.Caicai ZhangOi-Yee HoJing ShaoJinghua OuSam-Po LawPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 7, p e0253982 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Caicai Zhang Oi-Yee Ho Jing Shao Jinghua Ou Sam-Po Law Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
description	While the issue of individual variation has been widely studied in second language learning or processing, it is less well understood how perceptual and musical aptitude differences can explain individual variation in native speech processing. In the current study, we make use of tone merger in Hong Kong Cantonese, an ongoing sound change that concerns the merging of tones in perception, production or both in a portion of native speakers, to examine the possible relationship between tone merger and musical and pitch abilities. Although a previous study has reported the occurrence of tone merger independently of musical training, it has not been investigated before whether tone-merging individuals, especially those merging tones in perception, would have inferior musical perception and fine-grained pitch sensitivities, given the close relationship of speech and music. To this end, we tested three groups of tone-merging individuals with various tone perception and production profiles on musical perception and pitch threshold tasks, in comparison to a group of Cantonese speakers with congenital amusia, and another group of controls without tone merger or amusia. Additionally, the amusics were compared with tone-merging individuals on the details of their tone discrimination and production profiles. The results showed a clear dissociation of tone merger and amusia, with the tone-merging individuals exhibiting intact musical and pitch abilities; on the other hand, the amusics demonstrated widespread difficulties in tone discrimination yet intact tone production, in contrast to the highly selective confusion of a specific tone pair in production or discrimination in tone-merging individuals. These findings provide the first evidence that tone merger and amusia are distinct from each other, and further suggest that the cause of tone merger may lie elsewhere rather than being driven by musical or pitch deficits. We also discussed issues arising from the current findings regarding the neural mechanisms of tone merger and amusia.
format	article
author	Caicai Zhang Oi-Yee Ho Jing Shao Jinghua Ou Sam-Po Law
author_facet	Caicai Zhang Oi-Yee Ho Jing Shao Jinghua Ou Sam-Po Law
author_sort	Caicai Zhang
title	Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
title_short	Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
title_full	Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
title_fullStr	Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
title_full_unstemmed	Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.
title_sort	dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in hong kong cantonese.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/c8afe4e570f1451292f2eae968096a32
work_keys_str_mv	AT caicaizhang dissociationoftonemergerandcongenitalamusiainhongkongcantonese AT oiyeeho dissociationoftonemergerandcongenitalamusiainhongkongcantonese AT jingshao dissociationoftonemergerandcongenitalamusiainhongkongcantonese AT jinghuaou dissociationoftonemergerandcongenitalamusiainhongkongcantonese AT sampolaw dissociationoftonemergerandcongenitalamusiainhongkongcantonese
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Dissociation of tone merger and congenital amusia in Hong Kong Cantonese.

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