The relation between pitch discrimination and accent in modern languages

Abstract

Teachers' ratings on accent in French correlate .485 with general intelligence test scores and .210 with scores on pitch discrimination (Seashore test). No relationship was found between tonal memory (Seashore test) and French accent. The number of years of French studied correlates .225 with pitch discrimination. In general students rated low in pitch discrimination do not take more than two years of college French. There was a slight tendency for those rated low in accent to be rated frequently high in introversion and low in self-sufficiency on the Bernreuter personality inventory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)