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1. Are pitch accent patterns necessary for lexical access by native Japanese speakers?Katsuo Tamaoka1, Sachiko Kiyama1, Nobuhiro Saito2, Kalinka Timmer3,4, & Rinus Verdonschot1,3,4 1. Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University, Japan, ktamaoka@gc4.so-net.ne.jp 2. International Student Center, Kyushu University, Japan 3. Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, the Netherlands 4. Leiden University Center for Linguistics (LUCL), the Netherlands Introduction Japanese pitch accent patterns are assumed to be an attribute of lexical items (Vance, 2010). However, regional differences in pitch accent are abundant. Accents in the Osaka region often show pitch reversal compared to, for instance, the Tokyo-standard accent such as: ‘a hat’ boosi-ga LHHH (H=high pitch, L=low pitch) in Tokyo versus HLLL in Osaka. As there is usually no difficulty in understanding sentences even between regions, Japanese pitch accents may not be a very reliable cue for lexical access during spoken word recognition. The present study, employing both behavioral- and electroencephalographic measures, investigated whether native Japanese speakers necessarily activate pitch accent when accessing the concept of a lexical item when processing accent-contrasted homophonic pairs (e.g., ame [LH] for ‘candy’ and ame [HL] for ‘rain’). Analysis and Results Judgment accuracy was 97.0% for correctly rejecting sentences with semantically-incompatible words, 92.5% for correctly accepting sentences with correctly-accented words, and 87.7% for correctly rejecting sentences with incorrectly-accented words. A LME (linear mixed effect) model analysis showed a significant main effect [F(2, 4128)=37.220, p<.001]. Multiple comparisons showed that the incorrect pitch accent condition was more difficult than the other two conditions. Although native Japanese speakers showed very high accuracy rates across the three conditions, they had difficulty rejecting incorrectly-accented words. Nevertheless, the N400 differed between semantically-incompatible items and correct/incorrect-pitch accented items. No other ERP components were found. The N400 denotes an ERP component indicating sensitivity to the meaning of a word which is integrated into the surrounding context. In the present study, the N400 amplitude was found only in the sentences with semantically-incompatible words against both correctly- and incorrectly accented words. participants were asked to judge whether or not the sentence was correct. The event-related potential (ERP) triggers were locked to the initiation of a critical target word embedded in an auditorily-presented sentence. Apparatus and Recordings EEG measurements were acquired on 32 scalp sites using tin electrodes mounted in an electrode cap referenced to the left and right mastoid. Band-passed from 0.01 to 40 Hz and sampled at 512 Hz; 800 epochs with 200 ms pre-response baseline. Figure 2: Your caption to go here Method Nineteen right-handed native Japanese speakers living in the Aichi-region (central part of Japan) participated in the study. All participants were familiar  with Tokyo standard pitch accent. Forty-eight paired sentences across three conditions were prepared; (1) sentences with correctly-accented target words (Tokyo-standard accent) as in Kodomo-ni mainityi ame wo katte ageteiru (Everyday [I] buy candy for children), (2) the same sentences with incorrectly-accented target words which have different meanings. For example, ame [HL] ‘candy’ becomes ame [LH] ‘rain’, and (3) the same sentences with semantically-incompatible words (e.g., eki ‘station’). In addition, 48 filler sentences were added (to avoid awareness of the experimental manipulation), totaling 48 × 4 = 192 items. All sentences were auditorily presented. One second after sentence presentation, Conclusion Although there is evidence that native Japanese speakers may use pitch-accent during lexical access (e.g. Cutler and Otake, 1999), the result of the present study did not find electrophysiological evidence (i.e., N400) for the involvement of pitch accent when processing incorrectly accented words during sentence comprehension. The lower accuracy rate of incorrectly-accented words (87.7%) against the correctly-accented words (92.5%) may indicate that a pitch accent could be activated after lexical access and even after sentential understanding. Figure 3: Your caption to go here Quisque viverra lectus ac lectus References: Cutler, A. & Otake, T. (1999). Pitch accent in spoken-word recognition in Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105, 1877-1888. Vance, T. J. (2008). The sound of Japanese. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Contact : Katsuo Tamaoka - ktamaoka@gc4.so-net.ne.jp