Does musicianship influence the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information?

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of musicianship on the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information in non-native speech perception. We tested 112 Cantonese musicians, Cantonese non-musicians, English musicians, and English non-musicians with a modified Thai tone AX discrimination task. In the tone discrimination task, the control block only contained tonal variations, whereas the orthogonal block contained both tonal and task-irrelevant segmental variations. Relative to their own performance in the control block, the Cantonese listeners showed decreased sensitivity index (d′) and increased response time in the orthogonal block, reflecting integral perception of tones and segmental information. By contrast, the English listeners performed similarly across the two blocks, indicating independent perception. Bayesian analysis revealed that the Cantonese musicians and the Cantonese non-musicians perceived Thai tones and segmental information equally integrally. Moreover, the English musicians and the English non-musicians showed similar degrees of independent perception. Based on the above results, musicianship does not seem to influence tone-segmental perceptual integrality. While musicianship apparently enhances tone sensitivity, not all musical advantages are transferrable to the language domain.