Tone Representation and Learning

This thesis explores how people from different linguistic backgrounds perceive, understand, and learn tones from tonal languages, where pitch variations can change word meanings. It examines the cognitive and brain activities involved in tone perception and learning, and how native experience with a tonal language, like Mandarin, influences this ability. The research is based on four studies. The first looks at how native experience with tones helps people learn patterns involving tones. It shows that Mandarin speakers generally perform better at learning these patterns than non-tone speakers, though some non-tone speakers can also pick up on them. This variation suggests that experience with tonal languages can have a complex effect on tone perception and learning. The next two studies explore in what way tonal language experience lead to these differences. They reveal that Mandarin speakers process tones in an organized way linked to word meanings, while Dutch speakers, with no tonal experience, use pitch patterns to separate speech sounds into isolate units, which could later become meaningful words. The final study shows that non-tone speakers can learn tonal differences when exposed to tonal speech patterns, even without prior tonal experience. This suggests that the adult brain can adapt to tonal learning. Overall, the thesis highlights how both experience with tonal languages and the brain’s innate ability to recognize patterns are crucial for learning tones, offering new insights into speech processing and language learning.