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Congruent pitch gestures enhance the phonological and semantic processing of L2 Mandarin words in L1 English speakers
Poster Session A, Friday, September 12, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Rylan Batten1, Bashar M. Farran1, Laura M. Morett1; 1University of Missouri-Columbia
Introduction. Tonal languages (e.g., Mandarin) use lexical tone to distinguish between meanings, resulting in minimal pairs that differ only in terms of their pitch contours. For speakers of atonal first languages (L1s), like English, learning to use novel suprasegmental features may present challenges over-and-above the inherent difficulty of learning novel segmental features of second language (L2) words. These challenges may be overcome by observing gestures consistent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch, in which pitch is associated with spatial height. This study uses the N400 event-related potential (ERP), which reflects processing effort, to reveal the extent to which congruency of observed gestures with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch affects semantic and phonological processing of newly learned L2 words differing minimally in lexical tone. We predicted that learning via gestures congruent with the vertical metaphor of pitch would generate increased N400 response differences for mismatching vs. matching stimuli following learning in the lexical tone discrimination task, which taps into phonological processing, as well as the word meaning association task, which taps into semantic processing. Methods. Adult L1 English speakers (n=22) with no tonal language experience completed a pre-test, a learning task, and a post-test. Six pairs of words differing minimally in lexical tone were presented in the pre-test, post-test, and learning tasks. In the pre-test, which consisted of a lexical tone discrimination task, pairs of Mandarin words with either matching or mismatching lexical tones were presented. In this test, the 12 words were randomly presented 12 times each (144 trials). In the learning task, pairs of Mandarin words differing minimally in lexical tone were presented in one of three learning conditions: with gestures conveying the pitch contours of lexical tones (congruent); with gestures conveying the pitch contours of other lexical tones (incongruent); or with no hand movement (no gesture). In this task, 6 word pairs were presented in 6 blocks (36 trials). The post-test consisted of the lexical tone discrimination task presented in the pre-test and a word-meaning association task in which the 12 learned Mandarin words were paired with text of their English translations or translations of the other words in minimal pairs. N400s were measured throughout. Results. In the post-test, learning with congruent gestures resulted in larger right posterior N400s for mismatching than matching stimuli in the lexical tone discrimination and word-meaning association tasks. In contrast, the incongruent and no gesture conditions resulted in less differentiated right posterior N400 responses in the lexical tone discrimination and word-meaning association tasks. Discussion. Our preliminary findings suggest the difference in right posterior N400 responses between learning conditions reflects increased sensitivity to lexical tone in both phonological and semantic processing of newly-learned L2 Mandarin words after exposure to gestures congruent with the vertical metaphor of pitch. These results demonstrate that observing gestures consistent with the vertical conceptual metaphor of pitch when learning L2 words differing in lexical tone enhances phonological and semantic differentiation between them in atonal L1 speakers.
Topic Areas: Signed Language and Gesture, Multisensory or Sensorimotor Integration