Training musicians and nonmusicians to discriminate Mandarin tones

Abstract

Musicians and nonmusicians were compared in their ability to learn Mandarin tone contrasts. Participants were pretested to assess their accuracy in tone discrimination. Some were then given six sessions of articulatory and acoustic training over 3 weeks; others were given no training. At the end of 3 weeks, participants were again tested on their discrimination accuracy. Listeners judged whether the tones (tone 1, high level; tone 2, mid rising; tone 3, low dipping; tone 4, high falling) of two different Mandarin syllables were the same or different. In some trials, listeners discriminated tones in words spoken by two speakers; in other trials, they discriminated tones in words spoken by one speaker only. The pretest revealed that musicians are significantly more accurate in discriminating Mandarin tones than nonmusicians. Musicians and nonmusicians who received the training regimen performed more accurately than untrained listeners on the posttest discrimination. Musicians showed significantly less improvement than nonmusicians with training, probably due to ceiling effects (their posttest accuracy was over 95%). Two-speaker discrimination trials were significantly more difficult for all listeners, but especially for nonmusicians. Discrimination of tones 2 and 3 was most difficult for all listeners, but showed considerable improvement after training.