音乐训练对4~5岁幼儿普通话声调范畴感知能力的影响
摘要
<p id="C2">Music and speech share many acoustic commonalities and cognitive mechanisms. Previous studies have found that music training can improve categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin tones in adult musicians. However, it remains to be established whether music training can enhance the categorical perception of Mandarin tones in young children and whether the training effects can be influenced by the training duration. <p id="C201">The present study used a 2 (group: music training vs no-training) × 3 (test time: pre vs 6-month post vs 12-month post) between-and-within-subjects design to investigate the effects of music training on 4- to 5-year-old children’s CP of a Mandarin lexical tone continuum (from Tone 1 to Tone 2). The music training consisted of 110 sessions, 30 minutes per session, and three sessions per week for 12 months involving 20 preschoolers. The children were assigned to two groups, music training group (<italic>n</italic> = 20, age range from 49.69 months to 51.42 months, <italic>SD</italic> = 2.91 months) and control group (<italic>n</italic> = 20, age range from 51.69 to 52.56 months, <italic>SD</italic> = 3.0 months). In the music training group, the instructor guided children in activities leading to playing the small carillon, while children in the no-training group were given routine class activities. Each session of music training consisted four parts: Part 1 was “listen and sing songs” in which children learned to master notes and focus attention on subtle pitch changes; Part 2 was “listen and discriminate musical notes”, children learned to play a single note accurately according to the background music; Part 3 was “listen and play the carillon”, children listened to pitch changes in the background music, sang the notes and played the whole song melody; Part 4 was “play the carillon along with actions”, children listened to the background music and learned to play the carillon along with simple dancing actions. Children’s CP of tone co