The Effect of Learning Generalization of Pitch and Duration in Learning Estonian Quantity

Abstract

In this study, we examine the effects of learning generalization for pitch and duration contrasts and the influence of native language properties on perceptual discrimination tasks. The participants were speakers of Mandarin Chinese. 61 participants, 31 in the training and 30 in the control group, took part in the experiment that lasted eight days. On Day 1 and Day 8 the participants took part in a test, and the six days in between were for training. The test on Day 8 was done with new group of stimuli, which was analogical to the one used on Day 1 and in training. The results suggest three main findings. Firstly, the accuracy of the test scores of the training group, but not the control group, improved after training. Secondly, the participants were more accurate in discriminating the tonal contrast compared to the durational contrast already before training. Thirdly, the gap in accuracy between the duration contrast and the tonal contrast got smaller with training. Taken together, our results suggest a positive effect of perceptual training and that this effect can be generalized to new, untrained stimuli.