General Perceptual Contributions to Lexical Tone Normalization

Overview

Journal J Acoust Soc Am

Publisher American Institute of Physics

Specialty Otorhinolaryngology

Date 2009 Jun 11

PMID 19507980

Citations 13

Authors

Jingyuan Huang

Lori L Holt

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Within tone languages that use pitch variations to contrast meaning, large variability exists in the pitches produced by different speakers. Context-dependent perception may help to resolve this perceptual challenge. However, whether speakers rely on context in contour tone perception is unclear; previous studies have produced inconsistent results. The present study aimed to provide an unambiguous test of the effect of context on contour lexical tone perception and to explore its underlying mechanisms. In three experiments, Mandarin listeners' perception of Mandarin first and second (high-level and mid-rising) tones was investigated with preceding speech and non-speech contexts. Results indicate that the mean fundamental frequency (f0) of a preceding sentence affects perception of contour lexical tones and the effect is contrastive. Following a sentence with a higher-frequency mean f0, the following syllable is more likely to be perceived as a lower frequency lexical tone and vice versa. Moreover, non-speech precursors modeling the mean spectrum of f0 also elicit this effect, suggesting general perceptual processing rather than articulatory-based or speaker-identity-driven mechanisms.

Citing Articles

Reduced Context Effect on Lexical Tone Normalization in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Speech-Specific Mechanism.

Kuang C, Chen F, Yan J, Peng G J Autism Dev Disord. 2025; .

PMID: 40053229 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-025-06775-2.

Music Does Not Facilitate Lexical Tone Normalization: A Speech-Specific Perceptual Process.

Tao R, Zhang K, Peng G Front Psychol. 2021; 12:717110.

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Human cortical encoding of pitch in tonal and non-tonal languages.

Li Y, Tang C, Lu J, Wu J, Chang E Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):1161.

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Spectral contrast effects are modulated by selective attention in "cocktail party" settings.

Bosker H, Sjerps M, Reinisch E Atten Percept Psychophys. 2019; 82(3):1318-1332.

PMID: 31338824 PMC: 7303055. DOI: 10.3758/s13414-019-01824-2.

Effect of F0 contour on perception of Mandarin Chinese speech against masking.

Wu M PLoS One. 2019; 14(1):e0209976.

PMID: 30605452 PMC: 6317796. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209976.

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