The role of pitch accent in lexical recognition in Japanese: evidence from event-related potential and gamma-band activity

Taiga Naoe; Shingo Tokimoto; Qiong Ma; Min Wang; Masatoshi Koizumi; Sachiko Kiyama

doi:10.1515/jjl-2025-2008

Abstract

This study examined (i) the stage at which pitch accents contribute to lexical processing in native Japanese speakers and (ii) the interpretation pathway for the meaning of words pronounced with incorrect pitch accents. Event-related potential analyses during spoken word processing showed that words with incorrect accents elicited greater N400 amplitudes than those with correct accents, indicating that accent information aids in selecting suitable candidates from activated lexicons rather than in lexical activation itself. We employed a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm for the second aim, which involved exposure to a spoken word (prime) followed by a picture (target). Analyses of event-related spectral perturbations showed that the facilitation of semantic processing of the picture, indicated by low-gamma activity, occurred only after correctly accented words and not after incorrectly accented words. These findings suggest that incorrect Japanese pitch accents inhibit full access to their semantic contents when the words are spoken without appropriate contexts.

Keywords: prosody; pitch accent; event-related potential; gamma-band

Corresponding author: Taiga Naoe, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan; and Showa University, Tokyo, Japan, E-mail: naoe.taiga.a2@tohoku.ac.jp

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Kuniya Nasukawa and Takahiro Soshi for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank Kanae Ito, Tao Xie, Yunjie Ha, Koya Sato for data collection, and Natsumi Yamashita for acoustic measuring of the auditory stimuli. This research was supported in part by the following grant: the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (SCOP.) No. 19H05589 (M.K.), Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory) No. 18K18496 (S.K.), Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up No. 23K18681 (T.N.), Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists No. 24K16067 (T.N.), grants from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) No. JPMJMS2292 (M.N.). The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

References

Amano, Shigeaki & Tadahisa Kondo. 1999. Lexical properties of Japanese: Word familiarity. Tokyo: Sanseido.Search in Google Scholar

Ariga, Terumichi. 2022. Pitch accent constrains lexical activation in Japanese spoken word recognition: A semantic priming study. Language and Information Sciences 20. 1–17. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1390010457669430400.Search in Google Scholar

Asano, Michiko, Mutsumi Imai, Sotaro Kita, Keiichi Kitajo, Hiroyuki Okada & Guilaume Thierry. 2015. Sound symbolism scaffolds language development in preverbal infants. Cortex 63. 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.08.025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178118306747.Search in Google Scholar

Brown, Colin & Peter Hagoort. 1993. The processing nature of the N400: Evidence from masked priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 5. 34–44. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.1993.5.1.34.Search in Google Scholar

Cutler, Anne. 1986. Forbear is a homophone: Lexical prosody does not constrain lexical access. Language and Speech 29. 201–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383098602900302.Search in Google Scholar

Cutler, Anne, Delphine Dahan & Wilma van Donselaar. 1997. Prosody in the comprehension of spoken language: A literature review. Language and Speech 40. 141–201. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002383099704000203.10.1177/002383099704000203Search in Google Scholar

Delorme, Arnaud & Scott Makeig. 2004. Eeglab: An open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 134. 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2003.10.009.Search in Google Scholar

Frank, Stefan L. 2013. Uncertainty reduction as a measure of cognitive load in sentence comprehension. Topics in Cognitive Science 5. 475–494. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12025.Search in Google Scholar

Friedrich, Claudia K., Sonja A. Kotz, Angela D. Friederici & Kai Alter. 2004a. Pitch modulates lexical identification in spoken word recognition: ERP and behavioral evidence. Cognitive Brain Research 20. 300–308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.03.007. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15183401.Search in Google Scholar

Friedrich, Claudia K., A. Kotz Sonja, Angela D. Friederici & Thomas C. Gunter. 2004b. ERPs reflect lexical identification in word fragment priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16. 541–552. https://doi.org/10.1162/089892904323057281. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15183401.Search in Google Scholar

Friedrich, Claudia K., Ulrike Schild & Brigitte Röder. 2009. Electrophysiological indices of word fragment priming allow characterizing neural stages of speech recognition. Biological Psychology 80. 105–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2008.04.012. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051108001208.Search in Google Scholar

Hagoort, Peter, Lea Hald, Marcel Bastiaansen & Karl Magnus Petersson. 2004. Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science 304. 438–441. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1095455.Search in Google Scholar

Hale, John. 2006. Uncertainty about the rest of the sentence. Cognitive Science 30. 643–672. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0000_64.Search in Google Scholar

Hale, John. 2016. Information-theoretical complexity metrics. Language and Linguistics Compass 10. 397–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12196.Search in Google Scholar

Li, Xiaoqing, Yufang Yang & Peter Hagoort. 2008. Pitch accent and lexical tone processing in Chinese discourse comprehension: An ERP study. Brain Research 1222. 192–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2008.05.031.Search in Google Scholar

McClelland, James L. & Jeffrey L. Elman. 1986. The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology 18. 1–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(86)90015-0.Search in Google Scholar

McQueen, J. M., D. Norris & A. Cutler. 1994. Competition in spoken word recognition: Spotting words in other words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20(3). 621–638. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.20.3.621.Search in Google Scholar

Mellem, Monika S., Rhonda B. Friedman & Andrei V. Medvedev. 2013. Gamma- and theta-band synchronization during semantic priming reflect local and long-range lexical–semantic networks. Brain and Language 127. 440–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2013.09.003.Search in Google Scholar

Minematsu, Nobuaki & Keikichi Hirose. 1995. Role of prosodic features in the human process of perceiving spoken words and sentences in Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan 16. 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1250/ast.16.311.Search in Google Scholar

Mullen, Tim R., Christian A. Kothe, Yu Mike. Chi, Alejandro Ojeda, Kerth Trevor, Makeig Scott, Tzyy. Ping Jung & Cauwenberghs Gert. 2015. Real-time neuroimaging and cognitive monitoring using wearable dry EEG. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 62. 2553–2567. https://doi.org/10.1109/tbme.2015.2481482.Search in Google Scholar

Norris, Dennis & James M. McQueen. 2008. Shortlist B: A bayesian model of continuous speech recognition. Psychological Review 115. 357–395. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.115.2.357.Search in Google Scholar

Okubo, Matia, Hikaru Suzuki & Michael E. R. Nicholls. 2014. [A Japanese version of the FLANDERS handedness questionnaire]. Shinrigaku Kenkyu 85. 474–481. https://doi.org/10.4992/jjpsy.85.13235.Search in Google Scholar

Pylkkänen, Liina & Alec Marantz. 2003. Tracking the time course of word recognition with MEG. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7. 187–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(03)00092-5.Search in Google Scholar

Pylkkänen, Liina, Andrew Stringfellow & Alec Marantz. 2002. Neuromagnetic evidence for the timing of lexical activation: An MEG component sensitive to phonotactic probability but not to neighborhood density. Brain and Language 81. 666–678. https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.2001.2555.Search in Google Scholar

Sadanobu, Toshiyuki. 2005. Nihongo no intonetioh to akusento no kankei no tayousei [Diverse relationships between intonation and accent in Japanese prosody]. Japanese Linguistics 17. 5–25. https://doi.org/10.15084/00002135.Search in Google Scholar

Sato, Yutaka, Akira Utsugi, Naoto Yamane, Masatoshi Koizumi & Reiko Mazuka. 2013. Dialectal differences in hemispheric specialization for Japanese lexical pitch accent. Brain and Language 127. 475–483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2013.09.008.Search in Google Scholar

Sekiguchi, Takahiro. 2006. Effects of lexical prosody and word familiarity on lexical access of spoken Japanese words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 35. 369–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-006-9020-0.Search in Google Scholar

Sekiguchi, Takahiro & Yoshiaki Nakajima. 1999. The use of lexical prosody for lexical access of the Japanese language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 28. 439–454. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023245216726.10.1023/A:1023245216726Search in Google Scholar

Senkowski, Daniel, Till R. Schneider, John J. Foxe & Andreas K. Engel. 2008. Crossmodal binding through neural coherence: Implications for multisensory processing. Trends in Neurosciences 31. 401–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2008.05.002.Search in Google Scholar

Shibata, Takeshi & Ritei Shibata. 1990. Akusento wa doo’ongo o donoteido benbetsu shiuruno ka? Nihongo, eigo, chuugokugo no baai [how much can accent distinguish homophones? Cases of Japanese, English and Chinese]. Mathematical Linguistics 17. 317–327.Search in Google Scholar

Soto-Faraco, Salvador, Núria Sebastián-Gallés & Anne Cutler. 2001. Segmental and suprasegmental mismatch in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language 45. 412–432. https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2000.2783.Search in Google Scholar

Tamaoka, Katsuo, Nobuhiro Saito, Sachiko Kiyama, Kalinka Timmer & Rinus G. Verdonschot. 2014. Is pitch accent necessary for comprehension by native Japanese speakers? – An ERP investigation. Journal of Neurolinguistics 27. 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2013.08.001.Search in Google Scholar

Van Donselaar, Wilma, Mariëtte Koster & Anne Cutler. 2005. Exploring the role of lexical stress in lexical recognition. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A 58. 251–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724980343000927.Search in Google Scholar

Walsh Dickey, L. 1996. Limiting-domains in lexical access: Processing of lexical prosody. In University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics, Vol. 22, 133–155. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umop/vol22/iss1/6.Search in Google Scholar

Yamamoto, Hisako W. & Etsuko Haryu. 2018. The role of pitch pattern in Japanese 24-month-olds’ word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language 99. 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2017.11.003.Search in Google Scholar

Yuval-Greenberg, Shlomit & Leon Y. Deouell. 2007. What you see is not (always) what you hear: Induced gamma band responses reflect cross-modal interactions in familiar object recognition. Journal of Neuroscience 27. 1090–1096. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.4828-06.2007.Search in Google Scholar

Zhao, J., J. Guo, F. Zhou & H. Shu. 2011. Time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition: Evidence from ERP analyses. Neuropsychologia 49. 1761–1770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.054.Search in Google Scholar

Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/jjl-2025-2008).

Received: 2023-12-28

Accepted: 2024-05-21

Published Online: 2025-05-03

Published in Print: 2025-05-26

You are currently not able to access this content.

Supplementary Material