Aging and Distributional Tone Learning: The Role of Pitch Memory in Older Adults’ Discrimination of Mandarin Lexical Tones
Yin-To Chui, Susu LAI, Zhen Qin · 2025
Distributional learning enables listeners to form phonetic categories by extracting statistical regularities from speech input. Younger Cantonese speakers can acquire the Mandarin level-falling (T1–T4) contrast through distributional learning, with bimodal exposure facilitating category formation and unimodal exposure suppressing it, and fine-grained pitch sensitivity predicting success. However, aging is associated with declines in pitch sensitivity and phonetic boundary formation, which may disrupt this process. This study examined whether Cantonese-speaking older adults exhibit distributional learning of Mandarin T1–T4 and whether cognitive factors predict success. Sixty-four participants completed a pretest–training–posttest procedure with bimodal or unimodal exposure. While older adults improved in tone discrimination, no group differences emerged. Further analysis showed those with lower pitch-related auditory memory failed to learn from unimodal input. These results suggest a shift from perceptual encoding to memory-based learning and highlight age-related changes in speech perception and the limits of statistical learning in older adulthood.