Music Rhythmic Cueing for the Production of Non-native Speech Rhythm: Evidence from Chinese Learners of French.

The present study examined the cross-modal cueing effect of musical rhythmic beats on non-native speech rhythm production. Two groups of Chinese learners of French were cued respectively with rhythmic beats that either matched (matching group) or mismatched (mismatching group) the rhythm patterns of the target French sentences. The participants were asked to produce the target sentences after cueing and their speech production was compared with their baseline condition in which no cueing was used.

Individual differences in processing non-speech acoustic signals influence cue weighting strategies for L2 speech contrasts.

How could individual differences in processing non-speech acoustic signals influence their cue weighting strategies for L2 speech contrasts? The present study investigated this question by testing forty L1 Chinese-L2 English listeners with two tasks: one for testing the listeners' sensitivity to pitch and temporal information of non-speech acoustic signals; the other for testing their cue weighting (VOT, F0) strategies for distinguishing voicing contrasts in English stop consonants. The results showed that the more sensitive the listeners were to temporal differences of non-speech acoustic signals, the more they relied on VOT to differentiate between the voicing contrasts in English stop consonants. No such association was found between listeners' differences in sensitivity to pitch changes of non-speech acoustic signals and their reliance on F0 to cue the voicing contrasts.

Multiple prosodic meanings are conveyed through separate pitch ranges: Evidence from perception of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese.

F0 variation is a crucial feature in speech prosody, which can convey linguistic information such as focus and paralinguistic meanings such as surprise. How can multiple layers of information be represented with F0 in speech: are they divided into discrete layers of pitch or overlapped without clear divisions? We investigated this question by assessing pitch perception of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese. Seventeen native Mandarin listeners rated the strength of focus and surprise conveyed by the same set of synthetically manipulated sentences.

Prominence and Expectation in Speech and Music Through the Lens of Pitch Processing.

Speech and music reflect extraordinary aspects of human cognitive abilities. Pitch, as an important parameter in the auditory domain, has been the focus of previous research on the relations between speech and music. The present study continues this line of research by focusing on two aspects of pitch processing: pitch prominence and melodic expectation.

The functional relations among motor-based prediction, sensory goals and feedback in learning non-native speech sounds: Evidence from adult Mandarin Chinese speakers with an auditory feedback masking paradigm.

Previous studies in speech production and acquisition have mainly focused on how feedback vs. goals and feedback vs. prediction regulate learning and speech control.

Emotional Connotations of Musical Instrument Timbre in Comparison With Emotional Speech Prosody: Evidence From Acoustics and Event-Related Potentials.

Music and speech both communicate emotional meanings in addition to their domain-specific contents. But it is not clear whether and how the two kinds of emotional meanings are linked. The present study is focused on exploring the emotional connotations of musical timbre of isolated instrument sounds through the perspective of emotional speech prosody.

Modulation of cyclins and p53 in mesangial cell proliferation and apoptosis during Habu nephritis.

Background: Mesangial cell (MC) proliferation and apoptosis are the main pathological changes observed in mesangial proliferative nephritis. In this study, we explored the role of cyclins and p53 in modulating MC proliferation and apoptosis in a mouse model of Habu nephritis.

Methods: The Habu nephritis group was prepared by injection of Habu toxin.

Relations between affective music and speech: evidence from dynamics of affective piano performance and speech production.

This study compares affective piano performance with speech production from the perspective of dynamics: unlike previous research, this study uses finger force and articulatory effort as indexes reflecting the dynamics of affective piano performance and speech production respectively. Moreover, for the first time physical constraints such as piano fingerings and speech articulatory constraints are included due to their potential contribution to different patterns of dynamics. A piano performance experiment and speech production experiment were conducted in four emotions: anger, fear, happiness and sadness.

CXCL10 expression induced by Mxi1 inactivation induces mesangial cell apoptosis in mouse Habu nephritis.

MAX interactor 1 (Mxi1) proteins are c-myc antagonists that primarily exert their biological functions by inhibiting Myc-dependent gene transcription. In this study, Mxi1(-/-) mice were used to generate a model of mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis for the first time. In the present study, we demonstrated that Mxi1(-/-) mice exhibited a more typical and severe pathological phenotype, which was displayed primarily as a noticeable dissolution phenotype with a higher proportion of apoptotic cells and higher chemokine CXCL10 expression during the early days of modeling, compared with wild-type mice.

Mesenchymal stem cells attenuate ischemic acute kidney injury by inducing regulatory T cells through splenocyte interactions.

The mechanism of mesenchymal stem cell therapy in acute kidney injury remains uncertain. Previous studies indicated that mesenchymal stem cells could attenuate inflammation-related organ injury by induction of regulatory T cells. Whether regulatory T-cell induction is a potential mechanism of mesenchymal stem cell therapy in ischemic acute kidney injury and how these induced regulatory T cells orchestrate local inflammation are unknown.

Kruppel-like factor-15 inhibits the proliferation of mesangial cells.

Background/aims: The Kruppel-like factor-15 (KLF15), a DNA-binding transcription factor, is highly expressed in endothelial and mesangial cells of the kidney. However, its effects on mesangial cell proliferation have not previously been investigated. In this study, we investigated the effect of KLF15 on mesangial cell proliferation.

Bioinformatics analysis of proteomic profiles during the process of anti-Thy1 nephritis.

Anti-Thy1 nephritis is a well-established experimental mesangial proliferative nephritis model. Exploring the molecular mechanisms of pathophysiology in anti-Thy1 nephritis may elucidate the pathogeneses of mesangial proliferation. We examined the roles and acting mechanisms of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) by bioinformatics analysis of glomeruli proteomic profiles during the course of anti-Thy1 nephritis.

Change of MAX interactor 1 expression in an anti-Thy1 nephritis model and its effect on mesangial cell proliferation.

Background/aims: During the disease process of mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis, the expression of various factors that influence mesangial proliferation is altered. MAX interactor 1 (Mxi1) antagonizes the transcription factor Myc and is believed to be a tumor suppressor. However, no studies have investigated its effect on mesangial cell proliferation.