A cross-cultural comparison of tonal synchrony and pitch imitation in the vocal dialogues of Belgian Flemish-speaking and Mexican Spanish-speaking mother-infant dyads.

This study reports a cross-cultural comparison of the vocal pitch patterns of 15 Mexican Spanish-speaking and 15 Belgian Flemish-speaking dyads, recorded during 5 min of freeplay in a laboratory setting. Both cultures have a tradition ofdyadic face-to-face interaction but differ in language origins (i.e., Romanic versus Germanic). In total, 374 Mexican and 558 Flemishvocal exchanges were identified, analyzed and compared for their incidence of tonal synchrony (harmonic/pentatonic series), non-tonal synchrony (with/without imitations) and pitch and/or interval imitations. The main findings revealed that dyads in both cultures rely on tonal synchrony using similar pitch ratios and timing patterns. However, there were significant differences in the infants’ vocal pitch imitation behavior. Additional videoanalyzes on the contingency patterns involved in pitch imitation showed a cross-cultural difference in the maternal selective reinforcement ofpitch imitation. The results are interpreted with regard to linguistic, developmental and cultural aspects and the ‘musilanguage’ model.