Neuro-psycho-cognitive markers for pronunciation/speech imitation as language aptitude

The focus of this research is on explaining phonetic/speech imitation aptitude, but apart from biological (brain) markers (individual differences in speech imitation reflected by brain structure or function), we found markers in other psycho-cognitive domains. Higher speech imitation aptitude was accompanied by higher singing abilities, but also higher general musicality, auditory working memory, increased openness to new experience and empathy as personality markers, and differed between the sexes – males showing elevated pronunciation skills, females superiority in grammar and vocabulary learning aptitude. Since musicality and singing was a good predictor for L2 pronunciation and phonetic ability, regardless of the language, level of experience, we further investigated singing, musicality and phonetic aptitude in more detail and in different age groups from Kindergarten to adults. We found in musicality a strong predictor of speech imitation throughout the life-span, starting at age 4, where children had almost no musical or linguistic pre-training.