Non-native Tone Perception from Infant to Adult: How Consistent and Flexible is it?

Dutch infants and adults are tested on their discrimination of a lexical tone contrast in Mandarin Chinese and a manipulated tone contrast differing solely in acoustic salience. Results show homogeneous tone discrimination pattern between adults and infants as early as 8-9 months. Specifically, Dutch infants and adults discriminate acoustic salient tonal contrast. When the salience is weakened, Dutch adults and infants after tonal perceptual reorganization phase fail to discriminate the non-native contrast. Their sensitivity is however enhanced with the help of statistical learning or training effect, showing the flexibility of non-native tone perception.