title: The influence of tone inventory on ERP without focal attention: a cross-language study.
abstract: This study investigates the effect of tone inventories on brain activities underlying pitch without focal attention. We find that the electrophysiological responses to across-category stimuli are larger than those to within-category stimuli when the pitch contours are superimposed on nonspeech stimuli; however, there is no electrophysiological response difference associated with category status in speech stimuli. Moreover, this category effect in nonspeech stimuli is stronger for Cantonese speakers. Results of previous and present studies lead us to conclude that brain activities to the same native lexical tone contrasts are modulated by speakers' language experiences not only in active phonological processing but also in automatic feature detection without focal attention. In contrast to the condition with focal attention, where phonological processing is stronger for speech stimuli, the feature detection (pitch contours in this study) without focal attention as shaped by language background is superior in relatively regular stimuli, that is, the nonspeech stimuli. The results suggest that Cantonese listeners outperform Mandarin listeners in automatic detection of pitch features because of the denser Cantonese tone system.
authors.affiliation: School of Software Engineering, Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, Shenzhen 518172, China ; Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Hong-Ying
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: CUHK-PKU-UST Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ; Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ; Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Yong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: CUHK-PKU-UST Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ; Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Caicai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong ; CUHK-PKU-UST Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Minett
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong ; CUHK-PKU-UST Joint Research Centre for Language and Human Complexity, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: William S-Y
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001519:Behavior; D002681:China; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010898:Pitch Perception; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult