One Way or Another: Evidence for Perceptual Asymmetry in Pre-attentive Learning of Non-native Contrasts.

ABSTRACT: Research investigating listeners' neural sensitivity to speech sounds has largely focused on segmental features. We examined Australian English listeners' perception and learning of a supra-segmental feature, pitch direction in a non-native tonal contrast, using a passive oddball paradigm and electroencephalography. The stimuli were two contours generated from naturally produced high-level and high-falling tones in Mandarin Chinese, differing only in pitch direction (Liu and Kager, 2014). While both contours had similar pitch onsets, the pitch offset of the falling contour was lower than that of the level one. The contrast was presented in two orientations (standard and deviant reversed) and tested in two blocks with the order of block presentation counterbalanced. Mismatch negativity (MMN

SUBMITTER: Liu L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5869940 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature