Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages

The ability to imitate speech is linked to individual cognitive abilities such as working memory and the auditory processing of music. However, little research has focused on the role of specific components of musical perception aptitude in relation to an individual’s native language from a crosslin...

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Authors: Li, Peng, Zhang, Yuan, Baills, Florence, Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2023
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repository:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/70296
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2023.52
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Intonation languages
Musical aptitude
Speech imitation
Tone languages
Working memory
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spelling Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languagesLi, Peng Zhang, YuanBaills, FlorencePrieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-Intonation languagesMusical aptitudeSpeech imitationTone languagesWorking memoryThe ability to imitate speech is linked to individual cognitive abilities such as working memory and the auditory processing of music. However, little research has focused on the role of specific components of musical perception aptitude in relation to an individual’s native language from a crosslinguistic perspective. This study explores the predictive role of four components of musical perception skills and working memory on phonetic language abilities for speakers of two typologically different languages, Catalan (an intonation language) and Chinese (a tone language). Sixty-one Catalan and 144 Chinese participants completed four subtests (accent, melody, pitch and rhythm) of the Profile of Music Perception Skills, a forward digit span task and a speech imitation task. The results showed that for both groups of participants, musical perception skills predicted speech imitation accuracy but working memory did not. Importantly, among the components of musical perception skills, accent was the only predictive factor for Chinese speakers, whereas melody was the only predictive factor for Catalan speakers. These findings suggest that speech imitation ability is predicted by musical perception skills rather than working memory and that the predictive role of specific musical components may depend on the phonological properties of the native language.This study is funded by ‘Multimodal Communication: The integration of prosody and gesture in human communication and in language learning’ (PID2021-123823NB-I00) awarded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and ‘Multimodal language learning: Prosodic and Gestural Integration in Pragmatic and Phonological Development’ (PGC2018-097007-B-l00), awarded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional. P.L. is supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme (223265). F.B. acknowledges a Margarita Salas grant funded by the European Union-NextGenerationEU, Ministry of Universities and Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through a call from Pompeu Fabra University.Cambridge University Press202520252023info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/70296http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2023.52reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraInglésLanguage and Cognition. 2023 Nov 7;16(3):647-65info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/223265info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PGC2018-097007-B-l00info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2021-123823NB-I00© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/702962026-06-12T07:21:37Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
title Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
spellingShingle Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
Li, Peng
Intonation languages
Musical aptitude
Speech imitation
Tone languages
Working memory
title_short Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
title_full Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
title_fullStr Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
title_full_unstemmed Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
title_sort Musical perception skills predict speech imitation skills: differences between speakers of tone and intonation languages
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Li, Peng
Zhang, Yuan
Baills, Florence
Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
author Li, Peng
author_facet Li, Peng
Zhang, Yuan
Baills, Florence
Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
author_role author
author2 Zhang, Yuan
Baills, Florence
Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Intonation languages
Musical aptitude
Speech imitation
Tone languages
Working memory
topic Intonation languages
Musical aptitude
Speech imitation
Tone languages
Working memory
description The ability to imitate speech is linked to individual cognitive abilities such as working memory and the auditory processing of music. However, little research has focused on the role of specific components of musical perception aptitude in relation to an individual’s native language from a crosslinguistic perspective. This study explores the predictive role of four components of musical perception skills and working memory on phonetic language abilities for speakers of two typologically different languages, Catalan (an intonation language) and Chinese (a tone language). Sixty-one Catalan and 144 Chinese participants completed four subtests (accent, melody, pitch and rhythm) of the Profile of Music Perception Skills, a forward digit span task and a speech imitation task. The results showed that for both groups of participants, musical perception skills predicted speech imitation accuracy but working memory did not. Importantly, among the components of musical perception skills, accent was the only predictive factor for Chinese speakers, whereas melody was the only predictive factor for Catalan speakers. These findings suggest that speech imitation ability is predicted by musical perception skills rather than working memory and that the predictive role of specific musical components may depend on the phonological properties of the native language.
publishDate 2023
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2023
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2023.52
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2023.52
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Language and Cognition. 2023 Nov 7;16(3):647-65
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/223265
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PGC2018-097007-B-l00
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2021-123823NB-I00
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
reponame_str Repositorio Digital de la UPF
collection Repositorio Digital de la UPF
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repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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