Fundamental Aspects in the Perception of f0

This chapter outlines basic characteristics and principles in the perception of f0 and its interplay with other prosodic and segmental elements of speech. It focuses on those theoretical and empirical contributions that are essential for readers to know in order to conduct, interpret, and assess research on prosody and intonation. Thus, it starts with the psychophysical and psychoacoustic aspects of f0 and pitch, and continues with how perceived pitch patterns are constructed from f0 patterns in speech, also taking into account just noticeable differences. Stressing the various influences of sound segments in this construction process, critical concepts touched upon are intrinsic pitch, the missing fundamental, ‘segmental intonation’, and the theory of optimal tonal perception. Finally, an overview addresses the interplay between f0 and other aspects of prosody. This includes how f0 influences perceived duration and how f0, or rather perceived pitch, is in turn influenced by the acoustic energy level. Whenever useful, the chapter provides practical advice on how to measure and analyse f0 and pitch contours in speech.

FEATURES OF HOLOGRAPHIC PERCEPTION OF VISUAL PERSPECTIVE IN ARCHITECTURE

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of holographic human perception in the analysis of the architectural environment. Includes aspects of perspective-tonal perception of visual factors of holographic scanning of the human visual system. Aimed at understanding and reproducing the features and nuances of vision, in the context of summary analysis and reproduction of the system of energy flows in the elements of visual perception. The holographic factor of perception of reality is based on the difference between the work of the right and left eye, with the peculiarity of the angular adjustment of vision to the object of observation. The horizon line or the height of the perception of volumes, as well as the position of the spaces of the architectural environment remain dominant.

Examining the auditory approach: Lexical effects in the perceptual judgment of Chinese L2 tone production

Auditory perception is generally used by raters who are asked to evaluate the accuracy of tone production by non-native speakers (hereafter NNSs) who are learning Mandarin Chinese. However, its validity needs to be examined as the native speaking (hereafter NS) listeners’ lexical knowledge (i.e., knowing the possible combination of syllables and tones) may affect their judgments in different listening contexts. This lexical effect has been reported at the segmental level in non-tonal languages (McClelland et al. 2006; Norris et al. 2000). The present study extends to the suprasegmental dimension and compares NS listeners’ judgment on NNSs’ tonal performance of high frequency disyllabic word covering Mandarin disyllabic tonal combination in three lexical contexts, namely (1) hearing pairs of humming tones (syllables removed via Praat); (2) hearing disyllabic words (syllables + tones); (3) hearing disyllabic words + seeing target pinyin orthography. Statistical analyses revealed a significant effect of lexical contexts on the perceived tone accuracy, which increased when auditory and visual lexical cues were available, as in Conditions 2 and 3. Acoustic analyses further revealed the nature of the two lexical effects. Hearing words had a positive effect on the precision of the NSs’ tonal perception compared to hearing tones only. However, the visual presence of pinyin misled NSs to compensate for learners’ tone production deficiencies. The findings have implications for future research involving the rating of tones using auditory approach and also shed light on the teaching of Mandarin tones to NNSs.

Implicit Absolute Pitch Representation Affects Basic Tonal Perception

It is undisputed that the cognition of tonal music is primarily established by pitch relationships set within a tonal scheme such as a major or minor key. The corresponding notion—that absolute pitch and absolute key are largely inconsequential for tonal cognition—thus seems inevitable. Here, we challenge the latter notion, presenting data suggesting that absolute pitch and absolute key significantly modify listeners’ judgments of tonal fit and tonal tension. In two experiments extending the probe tone technique (as applied in Krumhansl & Kessler, 1982) participants heard a brief tonal context (a major triad in Experiment 1, a harmonic progression in Experiment 2) followed by individual probe tones, and rated how well each probe fitted the preceding context, as well as the musical tension conveyed by each probe. Two maximally distant key contexts, G major and D♭ major, were used in both experiments and in both tasks. Ratings revealed significant absolute pitch effects in both tasks, though in different ways. In the tonal fit task, diatonic pitches in G major were rated higher than those in D♭ major; in contrast, chromatic pitches were rated higher in D♭ major, compared to G. In the tension task, overall ratings were significantly higher for D♭ major contexts than for G major context (Experiment 1). Importantly, these effects reflect the occurrence frequency of pitch classes and keys in the tonal repertory: frequent pitch classes were rated as better fits than rarer ones, and a rarer key (D♭) rated tenser than a frequently-occurring key (G). Absolute pitch effects were most strongly manifested by participants without formal training, for whom the relative pitch effects of the tonal hierarchy were weak, and were stronger when tonal context was weaker (Experiment 1 as compared to Experiment 2). Results suggest that implicit absolute pitch perception, reflecting key and pitch class occurrence frequency, significantly affects tonal music processing; such absolute pitch effects may be activated principally when tonal perception or tonal cues are lacking.

Perception of tones by bilingual infants learning non-tone languages

This paper examines the ability of bilingual infants who were learning Dutch and another non-tone language to discriminate tonal contrasts. All infants from 5 to 18 months of age succeeded in discriminating a tonal contrast of Mandarin Chinese (Tone 1 versus Tone 4) and showed a U-shaped pattern when facing a less acoustically salient manipulated version (contracted) of the aforementioned contrast. Specifically, infants showed initial sensitivity to the contracted contrast during their early months, followed by a loss of sensitivity at the stage where tonal perceptual reorganization typically occurs, and a sensitivity rebound by the end of the first year after birth. Compared to a previous studying of ours testing monolingual Dutch infants (Liu & Kager, 2014), the discrimination patterns of bilingual infants revealed both similarities and differences. On one hand, as with monolinguals, non-tone-learning bilingual infants’ tonal perception presented plasticity influenced by contrast acoustic salience along the trajectory of perceptual reorganization; as well as a general U-shaped perceptual pattern when discriminating non-native tones. On the other hand, bilingual infants appeared to regain sensitivity to the contracted tonal contrast at an earlier age (11–12 months) in comparison with monolinguals infants (17–18 months). We provide several explanations, stemming from the simultaneous exposure to two languages, to account for the 6-month bilingual perceptual plasticity from linguistic and cognitive perspectives. The overall outcomes of the study offer insights into the infant perceptual reorganization and language development trajectory, expand on the differences between monolingual and bilingual language development, and broaden our understanding of the influence of bilingual exposure to the perception of non-native contrasts in infancy from linguistic and cognitive perspectives.