Musicality and non-native speech sound processing are linked through temporal, pitch and spectral acuity

Musicality and non-native speech sound processing are linked through temporal, pitch and spectral acuity. Vera Kempe (vkempe@abertay.ac.uk) Division of Psychology, School of Social and Health Sciences, Bell Street Dundee, DD1 1HG, United Kingdom Dennis Bublitz (dennis.bublitz@gmail.com) Department of Psychology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York Staten Island, NY 10314 USA Patricia J. Brooks (patricia.brooks@csi.cuny.edu) Department of Psychology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York Staten Island, NY 10314 USA Abstract native sound processing, especially because different types of acoustic information may be important for distinguishing different types of speech sounds. Specifically, the perception of vowels, which differ in spectral information associated with the first and second formants, should be most strongly predicted by sensitivity to timbre. In contrast, the perception of consonants, which are often distinguished by temporal information such as Voice Onset Time or formant transitions, should benefit from sensitivity to rapid temporal changes. Finally, lexical tones require sensitivity to pitch and, to the extent that they encompass differences in pitch contour, also sensitivity to temporal information. Thus, different aspects of auditory sensory acuity may be important for the processing of different types of non-native speech sounds. So far, the relationship between musicality and non-native speech sounds processing has been quite consistently established for tonal contrasts (Marie, Delogu, Lampis, Belardinelli & Besson, 2011; Slevc & Miyake, 2006; Wong, Skoe, Russo, Dees & Kraus, 2007), but the findings are less clear for phonological contrasts (Delogu, Lampis & Belardinelli, 2006, 2010). A primary aim of this study was therefore to examine the specific contributions of temporal, pitch, and spectral acuity to the processing of different non-native speech sounds, and to determine whether general measures of musical aptitude can explain additional variance in non-native speech sound processing above what is explained by these basic sensory processes. To this end, we examined both a tonal and a vowel contrast that exist in Norwegian, a language unfamiliar to our participants. Many dialects of Norwegian have lexical tone such that rising and falling-rising pitch accents distinguish minimal pairs of segmentally identical bi-syllabic words. For example, ‘Hammer’, spoken with the rising tone, is a Norwegian proper noun while ‘hammer’, spoken with the falling-rising tone, denotes the tool. These contrasts encompass temporal changes in fundamental frequency in the range of several hundreds of milliseconds. Norwegian also contains a vowel contrast not present in English, the /i/ - /y/ contrast. The existence of these Norwegian contrasts offers the possibility to use linguistic Are observed links between musicality and non-native speech sound processing due to superior sensory processing of temporal, pitch, and spectral information, which benefits both musical and linguistic processing? Native English speakers discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts, non-linguistic pure- tone analogues, Norwegian vowels, and short tones differing in temporal, pitch and spectral characteristics. Musicality was measured using Gordon’s (1989) Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation (AMMA). After controlling for effects of sex, non-verbal IQ and previous language learning experience, the link between AMMA scores and tonal contour discrimination was partially mediated by pitch acuity. In addition, tonal contrast, pitch contour and vowel discrimination were predicted by temporal and spectral acuity. No independent effects of musical training were found. Thus, links between musicality and non-native speech sound processing appear to be mainly due to superior temporal, pitch or spectral acuity, which, in turn, may play somewhat different roles in processing different speech sounds. Keywords: Non-native phoneme processing; temporal acuity, pitch acuity; spectral acuity; musicality; tonal contrast; vowel contrast. Introduction A number of studies have documented links between musicality and the ability to discriminate non-native speech sounds (Delogu, Lampis, Belardinelli, 2006, 2010; Marie, Delogu, Lampis, Belardinelli & Besson, 2011; Slevc & Miyake 2006; Wong, Skoe, Russo, Dees & Kraus, 2007). These studies typically use complex psychometric measures of musical aptitude, which leaves open the question as to which specific sub-components of musical aptitude are associated with non-native speech sound processing. Tests like the Wing test (Wing, 1968) or Gordon’s Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation (AMMA) (Gordon, 1989) rely on working memory for musical and rhythmic phrases as well as on the ability to discriminate subtle differences in pitch, timbre, intensity, and rhythm. It is not clear which of these sub-components of musical aptitude are linked to non-