A collaborative study conducted by Professor Jeong of the Applied Linguistics Research Program and Professor Piia Astikainen’s research group at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, has been published as an open-access article in the international journal Neuropsychologia. The study was led by first author Dr. Xueqiao Li, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Astikainen’s group.

The study examined Finnish-speaking adults with no previous experience of tone languages who completed a four-day Mandarin tone-training program, either in pairs or individually.

Participants’ ability to distinguish tones improved rapidly, and the P3a brain response to tone changes increased after training, indicating greater automatic attention to unfamiliar speech sounds. Participants trained in pairs were also more sensitive to tone changes on the first day, suggesting an early attentional benefit of learning with another person.

Publication Details
Li, X., Jeong, H., & Astikainen, P. (2026).
Rapid phonetic learning of Mandarin tones in adults: Daily behavioral improvement and brain activity changes. Neuropsychologia, 109543.

For further details, please visit: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109543