Intonation processing deficits among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: An ERP study
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1
Macquarie University, Department of Psychology, Australia
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2
The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Medical Psychological Institute, China
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3
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, China
Background: Congenital amusia, a disorder that affects the processing of musical pitch, offers a new perspective to investigate the extent to which pitch processing is shared between music and language. If melodic and linguistic pitch processing draws on partly shared mechanisms, then the melodic pitch processing impairments seen in amusia may be accompanied by deficits in linguistic pitch processing. In the current study, we examined the neural mechanism of intonation processing among mandarin speakers with or without amusia (see also, Wu et al, 2013). Method: 20 amusics and 22 matched controls were asked to discriminate whether the intonation (statement/question) of a pair of disyllabic Chinese words were same or different. EEG was recorded during the tasks. Results: Amusics were impaired at discriminating the intonation of speech (p<0.05). However, there was also a significant main effect of Intonation Pair (p<0.001) and no interaction with group, suggesting that both amusics and controls found certain intonation pair conditions more difficult than others. Furthermore, our sample of amusics showed no impairments on early auditory processing, as suggested by normal P1 and N1 (ps>0.05), but they exhibited a smaller amplitude in ERP in the time window 1200-1500ms (p<0.05). Conclusion: Mandarin-speaking amusics were impaired at discriminating intonation, but the two groups exhibited a similar pattern of performance across intonation pair conditions, and amusics showed no impairments on early auditory processing. Thus, amusics may have normal neural circuitry for processing differences in pitch, but this early processing of pitch apparently does not lead to an advanced and consciousness-involved processing phase. The results may inform discussions of the different levels of processing at which music and language share neural resources.
Keywords:
Pitch Perception,
ERP,
Congenital Amusia,
intonation processing,
Shared neural resources
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Language
Citation:
Lu
X,
Wu
D,
Liu
F and
Thompson
W
(2015). Intonation processing deficits among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: An ERP study.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00209
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Daxing Wu, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Medical Psychological Institute, Changsha, China, wudaxing2017@csu.edu.cn