ChancerubbageDo people whose native language is a tonal language have greater difficulty with a verbal task if reading or writing when music is playing in the background?
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Tim MillsFirst, I have no idea - that's a great question. However, here are some thoughts that lead me to guess that they'd have no problem (when compared to speakers of non-tone languages):
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1. Music is as much a part of culture in areas with tone languages as elsewhere.
2. Pitch is used in non-tone languages for lots of stuff (emphasis, enumerating lists, distinguishing statements from questions, etc), so maybe speakers of any language would have comparable effects of such distractors.
3. Whisper studies (and others) suggest that listeners have plenty of cues besides pitch to distinguish different tones.
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But it's an empirical question, and the answer could very well be yes despite the above!
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Native Tonal language excel at some music related tasks because of the verbal tonal inflection, I was just wondering if it effects their verbal concentration. I can read and write while listening to instrumental music, but I find verbal environmental audio verbal content is lost if Iβm reading or writing