Ingvalson Erin M, Nowicki Casandra, Zong Audrey, Wong Patrick C M
School of Communication Science and Disorders, Florida State University, TallahasseeFL, USA; Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, ChicagoIL, USA.
Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, ChicagoIL, USA; Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, EvanstonIL, USA.
Front Psychol. 2017 Feb 10;8:148. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00148. eCollection 2017.
Though there is an extensive literature investigating the ability of younger adults to learn non-native phonology, including investigations into individual differences in younger adults' lexical tone learning, very little is known about older adults' ability to learn non-native phonology, including lexical tone. There are several reasons to suspect that older adults would use different learning mechanisms when learning lexical tone than younger adults, including poorer perception of dynamic pitch, greater reliance on working memory capacity in second language learning, and poorer category learning in older adulthood. The present study examined the relationships among older adults' baseline sensitivity for pitch patterns, working memory capacity, and declarative memory capacity with their ability to learn to associate tone with lexical meaning. In older adults, baseline pitch pattern sensitivity was not associated with generalization performance. Rather, older adults' learning performance was best predicted by declarative memory capacity. These data suggest that training paradigms will need to be modified to optimize older adults' non-native speech sound learning success.
尽管有大量文献研究年轻人学习非母语语音的能力，包括对年轻人词汇声调学习中个体差异的研究，但对于老年人学习非母语语音（包括词汇声调）的能力却知之甚少。有几个理由让人怀疑，老年人在学习词汇声调时会使用与年轻人不同的学习机制，包括对动态音高的感知较差、在第二语言学习中对工作记忆容量的依赖更大，以及老年期类别学习能力较差。本研究考察了老年人对音高模式的基线敏感度、工作记忆容量和陈述性记忆容量与他们学习将声调与词汇意义联系起来的能力之间的关系。在老年人中，基线音高模式敏感度与泛化表现无关。相反，老年人的学习表现最好由陈述性记忆容量来预测。这些数据表明，需要修改训练范式以优化老年人非母语语音学习的成功率。
