Dong speakers outperform Mandarin speakers in behavioral pitch discrimination.

Tonal language speakers outperform non-tonal language speakers in behavioral pitch discrimination. Because the tone system differs in complexity across different tonal languages, it is unknown whether pitch discrimination differs across individuals speaking different tonal languages. There are nine tones in Dong but only four in Mandarin. This study investigates whether behavioral pitch discrimination is superior in Dong speakers compared to Mandarin speakers. Behavioral pitch discrimination was indexed by difference limens measured using pure tones and harmonic tones. The results indicate that Dong speakers outperformed Mandarin speakers in pitch discrimination tasks.