Choi William, Chan Lok Yan
Academic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Speech and Music Perception Laboratory, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 27;15(1):31558. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-17171-2.
Existing studies on language-to-music language transfer suggest that tone language background enhances musical pitch perception. However, tone language background was underrepresented as a binary yes-or-no variable in these studies. To extend the previous studies, we investigated the comparative effects of Cantonese and Mandarin language backgrounds on musical pitch perception. Forty-eight native Cantonese and Mandarin listeners were tested on static musical pitch, musical pitch interval, and dynamic musical pitch discrimination. Overall, the Cantonese listeners outperformed the Mandarin listeners in terms of sensitivity index and accuracy but not response time. The results indicate that Cantonese listeners exhibit superior abilities in discriminating static and dynamic musical pitch compared to Mandarin listeners. From a theoretical perspective, these results provide nuanced evidence for language-to-music transfer, indicating that different tone language backgrounds may enhance musical pitch perception to differing degrees. Additionally, the findings support the bi-directional OPERA hypothesis and motivate future studies to theoretically account for language-to-music transfer.
现有关于语言到音乐的语言迁移研究表明，声调语言背景能增强音乐音高感知。然而，在这些研究中，声调语言背景作为一个简单的是或否变量的代表性不足。为了扩展先前的研究，我们调查了粤语和普通话语言背景对音乐音高感知的比较影响。48名以粤语和普通话为母语的听众接受了静态音乐音高、音乐音高间隔和动态音乐音高辨别测试。总体而言，粤语听众在灵敏度指数和准确性方面优于普通话听众，但在反应时间上并非如此。结果表明，与普通话听众相比，粤语听众在辨别静态和动态音乐音高方面表现出更强的能力。从理论角度来看，这些结果为语言到音乐的迁移提供了细微的证据，表明不同的声调语言背景可能在不同程度上增强音乐音高感知。此外，这些发现支持双向OPERA假设，并促使未来的研究从理论上解释语言到音乐的迁移。
