Perceived pitch (tonality) of nonsense syllables with phonemes homogeneously or heterogeneously grouped phonemes according to a pitch model

Abstract

Research involving the perceived pitch (tonality) [M. M. Peterson and C. W. Asp, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 52, S146 (1972) and C. W. Asp, J. S. Berry, and C. S. Bessell, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 64, S20 (1978)] and optimal octaves in phoneme perception [E. E. McKenney and C. W. Asp, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 51, S122 (1972) and R. M. Miner and J. L. Danhauer, J. Am. Audiol. Soc. 2, 163–168 (1977)] has supported the notion that phonemes may be “frequency specific.” For these studies, homogeneously grouped phonemes were selected according to a pitch model [C. W. Asp, J. S. Berry, and C. S. Bessell, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 64, S20 (1978)]. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of homogeneously and heterogeneously grouping phonemes according to the pitch model. This included pairing a low /m/, a middle /l/, and a high /s/ consonant each with a low /u/, a middle /a/, and a high /i/ vowel. This resulted in three homogeneous (i.e., /mu, la, and si/) and seven heterogeneous (i.e., /ma, mi, lu, li, su, and sa/) nonsense syllables. Ten normal-hearing young adult listeners selected the syllable with the highest pitch in each pair within a paired-comparison paradigm. Results indicated that (1) the nonsense syllables could be ranked from high to low perceived pitch (i.e., /si, li, sa, mi, la, su, ma, lu, and mu/); (2) both consonants and vowels affected the listeners' judgments, although vowels appeared to have a greater effect; and (3) the rank order of the perceived pitch of the nonsense syllables was in agreement with past research. Tonality is discussed in terms of acoustic data as well as a mathematical perceptual model for predicting the pitch perception of phonemes in syllables and in words.