KUPPL
The University of Kansas
15 Blake Hall
Lawrence, KS 66045-3129
Phone: 785-864-3414
Fax: 785-864-5724
|
|
Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America 102 (3), September 1997 1864-1877
Speaker
normalization in the perception of Mandarin Chinese tones
Corinne
B. Moore and Allard Jongman
| This study investigated
speaker normalization in perception of Mandarin tone 2 (midrising) and tone
3 (low- falling-rising) by examining listeners' use of FO range as a cue
to speaker identity. Two speakers were selected such that tone 2 of the
low-pitched speaker and tone 3 of the high-pitched speaker occurred at equivalent
FO heights. Production and perception experiments determined that turning
point (or inflection point of the tone), and AFO (the difference in FO between
onset and turning point) distinguished the two tones. Three tone continua
varying in either turning point, AFo, or both acoustic dimensions, were
then appended to a natural precursor phrase from each of the two speakers.
Results showed identification shifts such that identical stimuli were identified
as low tones for the high precursor condition, but as high tones for the
low precursor condition. Stimuli varying in turning point showed no sign)ficant
shift, suggesting that listeners normalize only when the precursor varies
in the same dimension as the stimuli. The magnitude of the shift was greater
for stimuli varying only in AFO, as compared to stimuli varying in both
turning point and AFO, indicating that normalization effects are reduced
for stimuli more closely matching natural speech. |
|
|
