An eye-tracking investigation on the role of categorical perception and acoustic details in the processing of tonal alternations in context

Abstract

Neutralization is a phenomenon in which two different phonemes are realized as the same sound in certain phonetic environments. In Mandarin, a low-dipping Tone3 is converted to a high-rising Tone2 when followed by another Tone3, known as Third-Tone sandhi. Although previous studies showed statistically differences in F0 between a Sandhi-Tone3 (high-rising) and a Tone2, native Mandarin listeners failed to correctly categorize these two tones in perception tasks (Peng, 2000). The current study utilized the visual-world paradigm in eye-tracking to further investigate whether acoustic details in lexical tone aid lexical access in Mandarin. In the first experiment, we replicated previous studies in that production data of ten disyllabic minimal pairs of Sandhi-Tone3 + Tone3 and Tone2 + Tone3 words showed differences in F0 for the initial tones, but Mandarin listeners’ accuracy in identifying them was only around 50%. In the eye-tracking experiment, results showed that proportion of looks to pictures corresponding to Sandhi-Tone3 + Tone3 words was significantly higher when Mandarin listeners heard Sandhi-Tone3 + Tone3 words. A similar pattern was found when auditory stimuli were Tone2 + Tone3 words. The eye-tracking results demonstrated that subtle acoustic details of F0 aid lexical access in a tone language. Mandarin listeners with or without musical training will also be compared.