Training Children to Perceive Non-native Lexical Tones: Tone Language Background, Bilingualism, and Auditory-Visual Information

• Published in: Frontiers in psychology Vol. 9; p. 1508
• Main Authors: Kasisopa, Benjawan, El-Khoury Antonios, Lamya, Jongman, Allard, Sereno, Joan A, Burnham, Denis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 04.09.2018
• Subjects: auditory-visual; bilingualism; lexical tone; perceptual attunement; Psychology; speech perception; speech perception; auditory-visual; perceptual attunement; lexical tone; bilingualism
• ISSN: 1664-1078; 1664-1078
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01508

This study investigates the role of language background and bilingual status in the perception of foreign lexical tones. Eight groups of participants, consisting of children of 6 and 8 years from one of four language background (tone or non-tone) × bilingual status (monolingual or bilingual)-Thai monolingual, English monolingual, English-Thai bilingual, and English-Arabic bilingual were trained to perceive the four Mandarin lexical tones. Half the children in each of these eight groups were given auditory-only (AO) training and half auditory-visual (AV) training. In each group Mandarin tone identification was tested before and after (pre- and post-) training with both auditory-only test (ao-test) and auditory-visual test (av test). The effect of training on Mandarin tone identification was minimal for 6-year-olds. On the other hand, 8-year-olds, particularly those with tone language experience showed greater pre- to post-training improvement, and this was best indexed by ao-test trials. Bilingual vs. monolingual background did not facilitate overall improvement due to training, but it did modulate the efficacy of the Training mode: for bilinguals both AO and AV training, and especially AO, resulted in performance gain; but for monolinguals training was most effective with AV stimuli. Again this effect was best indexed by ao-test trials. These results suggest that tone language experience, be it monolingual or bilingual, is a strong predictor of learning unfamiliar tones; that monolinguals learn best from AV training trials and bilinguals from AO training trials; and that there is no metalinguistic advantage due to bilingualism in learning to perceive lexical tones.