ArticleHuman brain mapping2020
Neural correlates of intonation and lexical tone in tonal and non-tonal language speakers.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neural Correlates of Linguistic and Prosodic Processing in Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Learners.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2026Article
- Integrated cortical-cognitive signatures identified by machine learning enable early detection of MCI in type 2 diabetes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Multiscale neural features of tonal bilingualism: linking regional differences in brain network degree centrality to neurotransmitter-gene signatures in Bai-Mandarin bilinguals.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Speaking in Tones: The role of lexical tones in Chinese-speaking Primary Progressive Aphasia.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Preliminary study on the neural mechanisms of four tone recognition in deaf children using fMRI.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The role of musical aspects of language in human cognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Speech prosody enhances the neural processing of syntax.Communications biology · 2024Article
- The bidirectional effects between cognitive ability and brain morphology: A life course Mendelian randomization analysis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Bilateral human laryngeal motor cortex in perceptual decision of lexical tone and voicing of consonant.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Differential contributions of inferior frontal gyrus subregions to sentence processing guided by intonation.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Intonation processing of interrogative words in Mandarin: an event-related potential study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- Instantaneous neural processing of communicative functions conveyed by speech prosody.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022Article
- Motor constellation theory: A model of infants' phonological development.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Increased Gray Matter Volume Induced by Chinese Language Acquisition in Adult Alphabetic Language Speakers.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- How Tone, Intonation and Emotion Shape the Development of Infants' Fundamental Frequency Perception.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Neural Evidence of Language Membership Control in Bilingual Word Recognition: An fMRI Study of Cognate Processing in Chinese-Japanese Bilinguals.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Intonation processing increases task-specific fronto-temporal connectivity in tonal language speakers.Human brain mapping · 2021Article
- Neural correlates of intonation and lexical tone in tonal and non-tonal language speakers.Human brain mapping · 2020Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Intonation, the modulation of pitch in speech, is a crucial aspect of language that is processed in right-hemispheric regions, beyond the classical left-hemispheric language system. Whether or not this notion generalises across languages remains, however, unclear. Particularly, tonal languages are an interesting test case because of the dual linguistic function of pitch that conveys lexical meaning in form of tone, in addition to intonation. To date, only few studies have explored how intonation is processed in tonal languages, how this compares to tone and between tonal and non-tonal language speakers. The present fMRI study addressed these questions by testing Mandarin and German speakers with Mandarin material. Both groups categorised mono-syllabic Mandarin words in terms of intonation, tone, and voice gender. Systematic comparisons of brain activity of the two groups between the three tasks showed large cross-linguistic commonalities in the neural processing of intonation in left fronto-parietal, right frontal, and bilateral cingulo-opercular regions. These areas are associated with general phonological, specific prosodic, and controlled categorical decision-making processes, respectively. Tone processing overlapped with intonation processing in left fronto-parietal areas, in both groups, but evoked additional activity in bilateral temporo-parietal semantic regions and subcortical areas in Mandarin speakers only. Together, these findings confirm cross-linguistic commonalities in the neural implementation of intonation processing but dissociations for semantic processing of tone only in tonal language speakers.
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