Name:Adwoa, Ampiah-Bonney

School/Affiliation:University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Co-Authors:Patrick E. Savage, Yuto Ozaki, Peter Q. Pfordresher

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Short Bio:

Adwoa Ampiah-Bonney is a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Psychology at the University at Buffalo, working in the Auditory Perception and Action Lab. Her research examines how people engage with music across cultures, with a current focus on cross-linguistic vocal imitation ability in song and speech. She is generally interested in how cultural background shapes the way individuals engage with music.

Abstract:

Music and language utilize the same audio-vocal sensorimotor system yet serve distinct communicative goals, putting into question whether processing is distinct or shared. Vocal imitation, a cognitive skill central to both domains, offers a mechanism to explore this relationship. Prior studies reveal a "song advantage," where individuals imitate pitch more accurately in song than in speech (Mantell & Pfordresher, 2013). This effect may arise from acoustic differences between music and language, the role of pitch in each domain, or both. Although observed in English and Mandarin (Honda et al., 2023), its generality across diverse languages using naturalistic materials has not been tested.

This preregistered study examined whether the song advantage is culturally universal and how language familiarity influences vocal pitch imitation. Native English speakers (N = 100) at the University at Buffalo imitated culturally significant songs and matched recited lyrics from a global corpus (Ozaki et al., 2024), representing 16 languages grouped as English, tonal, pitch-accented, or non-tonal. Participants rated each item as speech or song and reported familiarity with the language and melody. Pitch accuracy was measured using pitch correlation and deviation based on comparison of participant pitch time patterns to target patterns.

Preliminary results (n = 72) showed greater pitch accuracy for song than for speech across languages. However, the extent of the effect varied by language. Speech imitation accuracy was also lower for tonal languages compared to other language groups. These findings suggest music and language may involve shared and domain-specific mechanisms.