Categorical perception of lexical tones by English learners of Mandarin Chinese

2016 ◽  
Vol 140 (6) ◽  
pp. 4396-4403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guannan Shen ◽  
Karen Froud
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Lexical Tones

Aging Effects on Categorical Perception of Mandarin Lexical Tones in Noise

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Yuxia Wang ◽  
Xiaohu Yang ◽  
Hongwei Ding ◽  
Can Xu ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Aging Effects ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Tone Recognition ◽  
Ratio Condition ◽  
Mandarin Tones ◽  
Mandarin Tone ◽  
General Tone

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the aging effects on the categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin lexical Tones 1–4 and Tones 1–2 in noise. It also investigated whether listeners' categorical tone perception in noise correlated with their general tone identification of 20 natural vowel-plus-tone signals in noise. Method Twelve younger and 12 older listeners with normal hearing were recruited in both tone identification and discrimination tasks in a CP paradigm where fundamental frequency contours of target stimuli varied systematically from the flat tone (Tone 1) to the rising/falling tones (Tones 2/4). Both tasks were conducted in quiet and noise with signal-to-noise ratios set at −5 and −10 dB, respectively, and general tone identification of natural speech signals was also tested in noise conditions. Results Compared with younger listeners, older listeners had shallower identification slopes and smaller discrimination peakedness in Tones 1–2/4 perception in all listening conditions, except for Tones 1–4 perception in quiet where no group differences were found. Meanwhile, noise affected Tones 1–2/4 perception: The signal-to-noise ratio condition at −10 dB brought shallower slope in Tones 1–2/4 identification and less peakedness in Tones 1–4 discrimination for both listener groups. Older listeners' CP in noise, the identification slopes in particular, positively correlated with their general tone identification in noise, but such correlations were partially missing for younger listeners. Conclusions Both aging and the presence of speech-shaped noise significantly reduced the CP of Mandarin Tones 1–2/4. Listeners' Mandarin tone recognition may be related to their CP of Mandarin tones.

Categorical Perception of Pitch Contours and Voice Onset Time in Mandarin-Speaking Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Fei Chen ◽  
Gang Peng
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Adolescents With Asd

Purpose Previous studies have shown enhanced pitch and impaired time perception in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, it remains unclear whether such deviated patterns of auditory processing depending on acoustic dimensions would transfer to the higher level linguistic pitch and time processing. In this study, we compared the categorical perception (CP) of lexical tones and voice onset time (VOT) in Mandarin Chinese, which utilize pitch and time changes, respectively, to convey phonemic contrasts. Method The data were collected from 22 Mandarin-speaking adolescents with ASD and 20 age-matched neurotypical controls. In addition to the identification and discrimination tasks to test CP performance, all the participants were evaluated with their language ability and phonological working memory. Linear mixed-effects models were constructed to evaluate the identification and discrimination scores across different groups and conditions. Results The basic CP pattern of cross-boundary benefit when perceiving both native lexical tones and VOT was largely preserved in high-functioning adolescents with ASD. The degree of CP of lexical tones in ASD was similar to that in typical controls, whereas the degree of CP of VOT in ASD was greatly reduced. Furthermore, the degree of CP of lexical tones correlated with language ability and digit span in ASD participants. Conclusions These findings suggest that the unbalanced acoustic processing capacities for pitch and time can be generalized to the higher level linguistic processing in ASD. Furthermore, the higher degree of CP of lexical tones correlated with better language ability in Mandarin-speaking individuals with ASD.

Aging Effect on Categorical Perception of Mandarin Tones 2 and 3 and Thresholds of Pitch Contour Discrimination

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxia Wang ◽  
Xiaohu Yang ◽  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Lilong Xu ◽  
Can Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Aging Effect ◽  
Pitch Contour ◽  
Tone Perception ◽  
F0 Contour ◽  
Identification Function ◽  
Tone Discrimination ◽  
Mandarin Tones ◽  
Mandarin Tone

Purpose The purpose of the study was to examine the aging effect on the categorical perception of Mandarin Chinese Tone 2 (rising F0 pitch contour) and Tone 3 (falling-then-rising F0 pitch contour) as well as on the thresholds of pitch contour discrimination. Method Three experiments of Mandarin tone perception were conducted for younger and older listeners with Mandarin Chinese as the native language. The first 2 experiments were in the categorical perception paradigm: tone identification and tone discrimination for a series of stimuli, the F0 contour of which systematically varied from Tone 2 to Tone 3. In the third experiment, the just-noticeable differences of pitch contour discrimination were measured for both groups. Results In the measures of categorical perception, older listeners showed significantly shallower slopes in the tone identification function and significantly smaller peakedness in the tone discrimination function compared with younger listeners. Moreover, the thresholds of pitch contour discrimination were significantly higher for older listeners than for younger listeners. Conclusion These results suggest that aging reduced the categoricality of Mandarin tone perception and worsened the psychoacoustic capacity to discriminate pitch contour changes, thereby possibly leading to older listeners' difficulty in identifying Tones 2 and 3.

Identification of Mandarin coarticulated tones by inexperienced and experienced English learners of Mandarin

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunjuan He ◽  
Ratree Wayland
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Disyllabic Words ◽  
Tonal Perception ◽  
Mandarin Tones ◽  
Tonal Context ◽  
Syllable Position

AbstractTwo groups of native English speakers, relatively inexperienced (N = 14) with 3 months of Mandarin study and relatively more experienced (N = 14) with 12 months of study, were asked to identify coarticulated Mandarin lexical tones in disyllabic words. The results show that 1) the experienced learners were better at identifying Mandarin tones than the inexperienced learners, 2) Tones in coarticulation were more difficult to identify than tones in isolation, 3) tonal context and syllable position affected tonal perception, and 4) experienced learners committed fewer tonal direction errors than inexperienced learners. However, experienced learners still made a considerable amount of tonal height errors.

Electrophysiological evidence of categorical perception of Chinese lexical tones in attentive condition

Neuroreport ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linjun Zhang ◽  
Jie Xi ◽  
Han Wu ◽  
Hua Shu ◽  
Ping Li
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence

Categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese revealed by mismatch negativity

Neuroscience ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 170 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Xi ◽  
L. Zhang ◽  
H. Shu ◽  
Y. Zhang ◽  
P. Li
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Lexical Tones

VAT of the lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangping Kong ◽  
Ruifeng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Lexical Tones

Bimodal Benefits Revealed by Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-Speaking Kindergarteners With a Cochlear Implant and a Contralateral Hearing Aid

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 4238-4251
Author(s):  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Gang Peng ◽  
Hongwei Ding ◽  
Yang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Lexical Tones ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Direct Benefits ◽  
Hearing Thresholds ◽  
Mandarin Tone

Purpose Pitch reception poses challenges for individuals with cochlear implants (CIs), and adding a hearing aid (HA) in the nonimplanted ear is potentially beneficial. The current study used fine-scale synthetic speech stimuli to investigate the bimodal benefit for lexical tone categorization in Mandarin-speaking kindergarteners using a CI and an HA in opposite ears. Method The data were collected from 16 participants who were required to complete two classical tasks for speech categorical perception (CP) with CI + HA device condition and CI alone condition. Linear mixed-effects models were constructed to evaluate the identification and discrimination scores across different device conditions. Results The bimodal kindergarteners showed CP for the continuum varying from Mandarin Tone 1 and Tone 2. Moreover, the additional acoustic information from the contralateral HA contributes to improved lexical tone categorization, with a steeper slope, a higher discrimination score of between-category stimuli pair, and an improved peakedness score (i.e., an increased benefit magnitude for discriminations of between-category over within-category pairs) for the CI + HA condition than the CI alone condition. The bimodal kindergarteners with better residual hearing thresholds at 250 Hz level in the nonimplanted ear could perceive lexical tones more categorically. Conclusion The enhanced CP results with bimodal listening provide clear evidence for the clinical practice to fit a contralateral HA in the nonimplanted ear in kindergarteners with unilateral CIs with direct benefits from the low-frequency acoustic hearing.

scholarly journals Categorical perception of lexical tones in mandarin-speaking congenital amusics

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wan-Ting Huang ◽  
Chang Liu ◽  
Qi Dong ◽  
Yun Nan
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Lexical Tones
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