Lexical Tone Perception in Tone language--a fMRI Study

Neuroimaging Clinical Trial

Official title:

Lexical Tone Perception in Tone Language speakers--a fMRI Study

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04135105
• Other study ID #: Lexical tone perception(fMRI)
• Status: Completed
• Start date: February 12, 2017
• Est. completion date: September 30, 2019

Study information

• Verified date: January 2020
• Source: Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Tone language refers to a language that uses fixed pitch pattern to distinguish words (Yip, 2002). Understanding the functional anatomy of the brain during lexical tone processing will provide useful hints for an effective intervention strategy such as brain stimulation. The present study investigate the cortical organisation of the brain in lexical tone perception of Cantonese speakers by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Description:

Tone language refers to a language that uses fixed pitch pattern to distinguish words (Yip, 2002). Cantonese is one of the main tone languages spoken by over 70 million around the world (Li et al.,1995; Adolfsson, 2010). Individuals with significant hearing impairment often present great difficulty in tone perception, affecting their understanding of words and hence, hamper their overall communication. The poor tone perception persists even with intensive auditory training coupled with advanced hearing technology such as cochlear implants.

Understanding the functional anatomy of the brain during lexical tone processing will provide useful hints for an effective intervention strategy such as brain stimulation. Researchers have been investigating the neural basis for tone perception in the past decades but failing to come to a consensus on the location of the brain that is responsible for lexical tone processing. The discrepant results may be due to the fact of the differences in subject selection (animals, healthy adults, brain-injured patients, tonal-language and non-tonal language speakers), testing materials and tasks employed (linguistic versus non-linguistic stimuli; dichotic listening versus discrimination and identification tasks) and outcome measurements (performance score, reaction time, accuracy rate, PET scan and fMRI).

Cortical organization, or brain mapping, refers to functional anatomy of the brain. The present study is the first study to systematically investigate the cortical organization of the brain in lexical tone perception of Cantonese speakers by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A comprehensive set of auditory stimuli specifically for investigating the different levels of lexical tone processing will be constructed. Native Cantonese speakers with normal hearing were recruited. They underwent fMRI while listening to the carefully designed auditory stimuli.

Once the cortical organization of lexical tone processing in Cantonese is identified, the valuable findings could be applied in further brain intervention procedures to tackle the long lasting, unresolved tone perception difficulty encountered by people with hearing impairment or other related disorders.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 29
• Est. completion date: September 30, 2019
• Est. primary completion date: February 25, 2018
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 60 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• native Cantonese speaker

• right-handed

• normal hearing

• no reported of neurological disorder

Exclusion Criteria:

• neurological disorder

• left-handed

• hearing impairment

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Chinese
• Lexical Tone
• Neuroimaging
• Speech Perception

Intervention

Other:
• Normal hearing group
Observational

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
China	Prince of Wales Hospital	Hong Kong	Hong Kong

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Chinese University of Hong Kong	Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong

Country where clinical trial is conducted

China, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Activation areas in the brain that are responsible for lexical tone perception	To identify the activation area(s) in the brain that are responsible for lexical tone perception in normal hearing participants	2015-2019
Secondary	Accuracy rate	Accuracy rate of passive listening task	2015-2019
Secondary	Reaction Time	reaction time of passive listening task	2015-2019