Language dependent cue-weighting of tone cues in speech and non-speech stimuli

Abstract

Previous research on tone perception has identified several important pitch related cues including average pitch height (AH), contour, onset and offset, and the weighting of these cues has shown to be language dependent. However, since multiple pitch cues are covarying with each other, few studies have directly compared relative importance of these cues. It is also not clear whether there is a same ranking of cues in speech and non-speech stimuli. The current study aims to tease apart the relative role of each cue using AX discrimination. Four pairs of tone contrasts with minimal pitch differences were created. Tone contrasts within contour condition are two level tones with 7 Hz differences. Tone contrasts within AH, onset and offset conditions have one rising tone and one falling tone sharing the same AH, onset and offset respectively. If one cue is important, then when this cue is kept constant, variation in other cues should be hard to perceive. 48 Mandarin speakers and 48 Cantonese speakers were recruited. Results showed highest importance of AH for both Mandarin and Cantonese listeners and higher importance of contour (offset) than onset for Mandarin (Cantonese) listeners in speech stimuli. This ranking was not held for nonspeech stimuli.