Weighting of cues to categorization of song versus speech in tone-language and non-tone-language speakers

Kachlicka, M., Patel, A. D., Liu, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-0222 and Tierney, A. (2024) Weighting of cues to categorization of song versus speech in tone-language and non-tone-language speakers. Cognition, 246. 105757. ISSN 0010-0277 doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105757

Abstract/Summary

One of the most important auditory categorization tasks a listener faces is determining a sound's domain, a process which is a prerequisite for successful within-domain categorization tasks such as recognizing different speech sounds or musical tones. Speech and song are universal in human cultures: how do listeners categorize a sequence of words as belonging to one or the other of these domains? There is growing interest in the acoustic cues that distinguish speech and song, but it remains unclear whether there are cross-cultural differences in the evidence upon which listeners rely when making this fundamental perceptual categorization. Here we use the speech-to-song illusion, in which some spoken phrases perceptually transform into song when repeated, to investigate cues to this domain-level categorization in native speakers of tone languages (Mandarin and Cantonese speakers residing in the United Kingdom and China) and in native speakers of a non-tone language (English). We find that native tone-language and non-tone-language listeners largely agree on which spoken phrases sound like song after repetition, and we also find that the strength of this transformation is not significantly different across language backgrounds or countries of residence. Furthermore, we find a striking similarity in the cues upon which listeners rely when perceiving word sequences as singing versus speech, including small pitch intervals, flat within-syllable pitch contours, and steady beats. These findings support the view that there are certain widespread cross-cultural similarities in the mechanisms by which listeners judge if a word sequence is spoken or sung.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/115632
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105757
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) Interdisciplinary centres and themes > ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) Research Network Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Perception and Action
Publisher	Elsevier
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