As an information-bearing auditory attribute of sound, pitch plays a crucial role in the perception of speech and music. Studies examining pitch processing in autism spectrum disorder have produced equivocal results. To understand this discrepancy from a mechanistic perspective, we used a novel data-driven method, the reverse-correlation paradigm,…

We studied the role of sensorimotor and working memory systems in supporting development of perceptual rhythm processing with 119 participants aged 7-12 years. Children were assessed for their abilities in sensorimotor synchronization (SMS; beat tapping), auditory working memory (AWM; digit span), and rhythm discrimination (RD; same/different…

In the present study, 144 second- and 150 fourth-grade Chinese students were recruited to complete a Chinese character learning task to explore the specific contributions of sensory-motor components (i.e., visual, motor, and haptic systems) of handwriting to Chinese character learning. After matching for age, nonverbal IQ, and a series of…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore when and how Mandarin-speaking children use contextual cues to normalize speech variability in perceiving lexical tones. Two different cognitive mechanisms underlying speech normalization (lower level acoustic normalization and higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization) were investigated through the…

Structural priming is the tendency to repeat syntactic structure across sentences and can be divided into short-term (prime to immediately following target) and long-term (across an experimental session) components. This study investigates how nondeclarative memory could support both the transient, short-term and the persistent, long-term…