No Heightened Musical Pitch Weighting For Tone Language Speakers in Early Childhood

Numerous studies suggest that speakers of some tone languages show advantages in musical pitch processing compared to non-tone language speakers. A recent study adults (Jasmin et al., 2021) suggests addition heightened sensitivity, weight information more strongly than other auditory cues (amplitude, duration) both linguistic and nonlinguistic settings The current asks whether upweighting is evident early childhood. To test this, two groups 3- 5-year-old children—tone-language (n = 48), a group previously shown have perceptual advantage tasks (Creel 2018), non-tone-language 48)—took part “word learning” task. Children associated cartoon characters with brief phrases differing instrument contour. If strongly, cue conflict trials should stronger responding for In contrast adult speakers’ weighting child perception advantages, tone-language-speaking children did not greater speaking children. This slow developmental course reweighting, contrasting apparent emergence sensitivity.