Effects of linguistic experience on the perception of high-variability non-native tones

Whether tone language experience facilitates non-native tone perception is an area of research that previously yielded conflicting results, potentially because of the lack of systematical control of speaker normalization effects across studies. Under a high-variability testing condition with controlled speaker normalization cues, Cantonese (native controls), Mandarin (Cantonese-naive tone listeners), and English (non-tone listeners) listeners identified three Cantonese level tones. The results indicate a facilitatory effect of tone experience on non-native tone perception when normalization for inter-speaker variation is required.