Dataset Information

The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts.

ABSTRACT: Sleep-mediated overnight consolidation has been found to facilitate perceptual learning by promoting learners' generalization across talkers in their perception of novel segmental categories. Lexical tone is characterized by high variability across talkers, and displays dynamic change over time. For this reason, it remains unclear whether a similar effect of overnight consolidation would be found for perceptual learning of novel tonal contrasts. Thus, this study aims to examine whether overnight consolidation facilitates talker-independent learning of lexical tones in the identification and discrimination of novel Cantonese level tones by Mandarin listeners. Two groups of Mandarin listeners were perceptually trained either in the morning or in the evening. Listeners were trained in a tone identification (ID) task with feedback using stimuli produced by a trained talker. Their post-training changes and generalization to a novel talker were then tested in the ID and AX discrimination tasks using stimuli produced by trained and untrained talkers in three posttests following training: immediately after training, 12-hour delay, and 24-hour delay. While the evening group slept between the first and second posttests, the morning group did not. The accuracy rates in the ID task showed that the evening group showed an improved trend, predicted by their individual sleep time, in identifying the level tones produced by both the trained and untrained talkers; in contrast, the morning group showed a declining trend. The d-prime scores in the AX discrimination task did not show different patterns between the two groups. The finding of sleep-related identification changes over time suggests that overnight consolidation might have facilitated tone learning of stimuli produced by the novel talker and eventually facilitated the formation of a more talker-independent representation of novel tone categories in long-term memory. The results are discussed in light of the features of lexical tones to shed light on the mechanism of phonetic learning.

SUBMITTER: Qin Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6907771 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts.

Qin Zhen Z Zhang Caicai C

PloS one 20191212 12

Sleep-mediated overnight consolidation has been found to facilitate perceptual learning by promoting learners' generalization across talkers in their perception of novel segmental categories. Lexical tone is characterized by high variability across talkers, and displays dynamic change over time. For this reason, it remains unclear whether a similar effect of overnight consolidation would be found for perceptual learning of novel tonal contrasts. Thus, this study aims to examine whether overnight ...[more]

PMID: 31830045

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Project description:Learning is considered to consist of two distinct phases-acquisition and consolidation. Acquisition can be disrupted when short periods of training on more than one task are interleaved, whereas consolidation can be disrupted when a second task is trained after the first has been initiated. Here we investigated the conditions governing the disruption to acquisition and consolidation during mixed-training regimens in which primary and secondary amplitude modulation tasks were either interleaved or presented consecutively. The secondary task differed from the primary task in either task-irrelevant (carrier frequency) or task-relevant (modulation rate) stimulus features while requiring the same perceptual judgment (amplitude modulation depth discrimination), or shared both irrelevant and relevant features but required a different judgment (amplitude modulation rate discrimination). Based on previous literature we predicted that acquisition would be disrupted by varying the task-relevant stimulus feature during training (stimulus interference), and that consolidation would be disrupted by varying the perceptual judgment required (task interference). We found that varying the task-relevant or -irrelevant stimulus features failed to disrupt acquisition but did disrupt consolidation, whereas mixing two tasks requiring a different perceptual judgment but sharing the same stimulus features disrupted both acquisition and consolidation. Thus, a distinction between acquisition and consolidation phases of perceptual learning cannot simply be attributed to (task-relevant) stimulus versus task interference. We propose instead that disruption occurs during acquisition when mixing two tasks requiring a perceptual judgment based on different cues, whereas consolidation is always disrupted regardless of whether different stimulus features or tasks are mixed. The current study not only provides a novel insight into the underlying mechanisms of perceptual learning, but also has practical implications for the optimal design and delivery of training programs that aim to remediate perceptual difficulties.

Dataset Information

The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts.

Publications

The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts.

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