Lexical tone perception in native speakers of Cantonese

ABSTRACTTwo experiments focus on Thai tone perception by native speakers of tone languages (Thai, Cantonese, and Mandarin), a pitch–accent (Swedish), and a nontonal (English) language. In Experiment 1, there was better auditory-only and auditory–visual discrimination by tone and pitch–accent language speakers than by nontone language speakers. Conversely and counterintuitively, there was better visual-only discrimination by nontone language speakers than tone and pitch–accent language speakers. Nevertheless, visual augmentation of auditory tone perception in noise was evident for all five language groups. In Experiment 2, involving discrimination in three fundamental frequency equivalent auditory contexts, tone and pitch–accent language participants showed equivalent discrimination for normal Thai speech, filtered speech, and violin sounds. In contrast, nontone language listeners had significantly better discrimination for violin sounds than filtered speech and in turn speech. Together the results show that tone perception is determined by both auditory and visual information, by acoustic and linguistic contexts, and by universal and experiential factors.

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On the Relationship Between General Auditory Sensitivity and Speech Perception: An Examination of Pitch and Lexical Tone Perception in 4- to 6-Year-Old Children

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-19-00104 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (2) ◽

pp. 487-498

Author(s):

Puisan Wong ◽

Man Wai Cheng

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Developmental Trajectory ◽

Auditory Sensitivity ◽

Pitch Discrimination ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Perceptual Training ◽

Lexical Tones ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Tone Discrimination

Purpose Theoretical models and substantial research have proposed that general auditory sensitivity is a developmental foundation for speech perception and language acquisition. Nonetheless, controversies exist about the effectiveness of general auditory training in improving speech and language skills. This research investigated the relationships among general auditory sensitivity, phonemic speech perception, and word-level speech perception via the examination of pitch and lexical tone perception in children. Method Forty-eight typically developing 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children were tested on the discrimination of the pitch patterns of lexical tones in synthetic stimuli, discrimination of naturally produced lexical tones, and identification of lexical tone in familiar words. Results The findings revealed that accurate lexical tone discrimination and identification did not necessarily entail the accurate discrimination of nonlinguistic stimuli that followed the pitch levels and pitch shapes of lexical tones. Although pitch discrimination and tone discrimination abilities were strongly correlated, accuracy in pitch discrimination was lower than that in tone discrimination, and nonspeech pitch discrimination ability did not precede linguistic tone discrimination in the developmental trajectory. Conclusions Contradicting the theoretical models, the findings of this study suggest that general auditory sensitivity and speech perception may not be causally or hierarchically related. The finding that accuracy in pitch discrimination is lower than that in tone discrimination suggests that comparable nonlinguistic auditory perceptual ability may not be necessary for accurate speech perception and language learning. The results cast doubt on the use of nonlinguistic auditory perceptual training to improve children's speech, language, and literacy abilities.

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Lexical Tone Perception in Tone language--a fMRI Study

Case Medical Research ◽

10.31525/ct1-nct04135105 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Keyword(s):

Lexical Tone ◽

Tone Language ◽

Tone Perception ◽

Fmri Study

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Effect of Noise on Lexical Tone Perception in Cantonese-Speaking Amusics

10.21437/interspeech.2016-891 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Jing Shao ◽

Caicai Zhang ◽

Gang Peng ◽

Yike Yang ◽

William S.-Y. Wang

Keyword(s):

Lexical Tone ◽

Tone Perception

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The Derived Allele of ASPM Is Associated with Lexical Tone Perception

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0034243 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. e34243 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Patrick C. M. Wong ◽

Bharath Chandrasekaran ◽

Jing Zheng

Keyword(s):

Lexical Tone ◽

Tone Perception

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Perceptie van toon en vocaalduur in het dialect van Weert

Handelingen - Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis ◽

10.21825/kzm.v62i0.17436 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 62 ◽

pp. 29-40

Author(s):

Jo Verhoeven

Keyword(s):

Native Speakers ◽

Vowel Duration ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Grammatical Categories

This study investigates the perceptual relevance of vowel duration and pitchmovement alignment to lexical tone identification in the Dutch-Limburgdialect of Weert. For this purpose a perception experiment was carried out inwhich listeners identified a series of experimental stimuli differing in vowelduration and tonal alignment as instances of the grammatical categories 'singular'or 'plural'. The results of this experiment suggest that native speakers ofthe Weert dialect are most sensitive to vowel duration differences. Only whenvowel duration is ambiguous, tonal alignment enables them to disambiguatethe stimuli. This supports the tonal re-interpretion hypothesis in terms ofvowel duration.

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The perception of Mandarin lexical tones by native Korean speakers differing in their experience with Mandarin

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658318775155 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 305-318 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Kimiko Tsukada ◽

Jeong-Im Han

Keyword(s):

Fundamental Frequency ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Learning Experience ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Discrimination Test ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Lexical Tones ◽

Perceptual Salience ◽

Level Tone

While it is well established that non-native speakers differ from native speakers in their perception and/or production of Mandarin lexical tones, empirical studies focusing on non-native learners are still limited. The objective of this study is to add to the current understanding of lexical tone perception by comparing native speakers of standard Korean from the Seoul/Kyunggi area differing in Mandarin experience (NK1, NK2) with native speakers of Mandarin. NK1 ( n = 10) had no experience with Mandarin whereas NK2 ( n = 10) consisted of highly advanced learners of Mandarin. A group of 10 native Mandarin (NM) speakers was included as controls. Accuracy of perception of six tone pairs (T1–T2, T1–T3, T1–T4, T2–T3, T2–T4, T3–T4) was assessed in a four-alternative forced-choice discrimination test. As expected, the NK2 group with extensive Mandarin learning experience resembled the NM group to a greater extent than did the NK1 group. T2–T3 was the hardest pair for both NK groups, but NK2 had the largest advantage over NK1 for this pair. Apart from T2–T3 which is generally considered difficult, tone pairs involving T1 caused some misperception by the NK groups. This may be related to the difficulty with perceiving a level tone which shows the least fundamental frequency (F0) movement and possibly has limited perceptual salience.

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