A Cross-Linguistic PET Study of Tone Perception in Mandarin Chinese and English Speakers

Authors: Klein D.; Zatorre R.J.; Milner B.; Zhao V.

Source: NeuroImage, Volume 13, Number 4, April 2001 , pp. 646-653(8)

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Abstract:

PET was used in a cross-linguistic study to determine whether neural mechanisms subserving pitch perception differ as a function of linguistic relevance. We compared tone perception in 12 native Mandarin speakers, who use tonal patterns to distinguish lexical meaning, with that of 12 native speakers of a nontone language, English. Subjects were scanned under two conditions: a silent resting baseline and a tonal task involving discrimination of pitch patterns in Mandarin words. Both groups showed common regions of CBF increase, but only Mandarin speakers showed additional activation in frontal, parietal, and parieto-occipital regions of the left hemisphere; this latter finding indicates that language experience may influence brain circuitry in the processing of auditory cues. In contrast, only the English group showed activity in the right inferior frontal cortex, consistent with a right-hemispheric role in pitch perception. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Keywords: language; PET; lexical tone; speech perception

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada

Publication date: 2001-04-01