Combinations Of Tones Research Articles

Attractiveness as a Function of Skin Tone and Facial Features: Evidence from Categorization Studies

ABSTRACTParticipants rated the attractiveness and racial typicality of male faces varying in their facial features from Afrocentric to Eurocentric and in skin tone from dark to light in two experiments. Experiment 1 provided evidence that facial features and skin tone have an interactive effect on perceptions of attractiveness and mixed-race faces are perceived as more attractive than single-race faces. Experiment 2 further confirmed that faces with medium levels of skin tone and facial features are perceived as more attractive than faces with extreme levels of these factors. Black phenotypes (combinations of dark skin tone and Afrocentric facial features) were rated as more attractive than White phenotypes (combinations of light skin tone and Eurocentric facial features); ambiguous faces (combinations of Afrocentric and Eurocentric physiognomy) with medium levels of skin tone were rated as the most attractive in Experiment 2. Perceptions of attractiveness were relatively independent of racial categorization in both experiments.

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

AbstractAuditory 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 viaPraat); (2) hearing disyllabic words (syllables + tones); (3) hearing disyllabic words + seeing targetpinyinorthography. 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 ofpinyinmisled 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.

Prosodic and segmental cues to regional dialect variation in American English

Historically, most research on regional variation in American English (AE) examined lexical and segmental sources of variability. Focusing on prosodic variation, we have demonstrated significant effects of regional dialect on overall articulation rate, distributions of pauses, pitch accents, phrasal-boundary tone combinations, and syllable-to-syllable vowel and consonant duration variability (Clopper & Smiljanic, 2015, 2011). In this talk, we examine whether native AE listeners utilize prosodic and segmental cues to classify AE talkers by region and whether listener familiarity with different dialects affects classification. Using free classification with unmodified, monotone (flattened F0), and low-pass filtered (removed segmental information) stimuli, listeners from Ohio and Texas grouped 60 talkers based on perceived regional similarities. Listeners were more accurate in classifying talkers with the unmodified and monotone stimuli than with the low-pass filtered stimuli. There were no differences between the two listener groups in accuracy. Multidimensional scaling analyses indicated that listeners used gender and region as salient dimensions in classifying talkers in the unmodified and monotone conditions, but not in the low-pass filtered condition. The results suggest that segmental cues facilitated classification whereas intonation and global temporal cues on their own did not. The relationship between acoustic-phonetic features and classification patterns will be discussed.

Phonetic complexity affects children's Mandarin tone production accuracy in disyllabic words: A perceptual study.

This is the first study to examine the effect of phonetic contexts on children’s lexical tone production. Mandarin tones in disyllabic words produced by forty-four 2- to 6-year-old children and twelve mothers were low-pass filtered to eliminate lexical information. Native Mandarin-speaking adults categorized the tones based on the pitch information in the filtered stimuli. All mothers’ tones were categorized with ceiling accuracy. Counter to the findings in most previous studies on children’s tone acquisition and the prevailing assumption in models of speech development that children acquire suprasegmental features much earlier than segmental features, this study found that children as old as six years of age have not mastered the production of Mandarin tones. Children’s tones were judged with significantly lower accuracy than mothers’ productions. Tone accuracy improved, while cross subject variability in tone accuracy decreased, with age. Children’s tone accuracy was affected by the articulatory complexity of phonetic contexts. Children made more errors in tone combinations with more complex fundamental frequency (F0) contours than tone sequences with simpler F0 changes. When producing disyllabic tone sequences with complex F0 contours, children tended to shift the F0 contour of the first tone to reduce the F0 change, resulting in more tone errors in the first syllable than in the second syllable and showing substantially more anticipatory coarticulation than adults. The results provide further evidence that acquisition of lexical tones is a protracted process in children. Tones produced accurately by children in one phonetic context may not be produced correctly in another phonetic context. Children demonstrate more anticipatory coarticulation in their disyllabic productions than adults, which may be attributed to children’s immature speech motor control in tone production, and is presumably a by-product of their inability to accomplish complex F0 changes within the syllable time-frame.

The Influence of Combat Experience on Psychologically Healthy Soldiers' Attentiveness to Environmental Threats.

In contrast to previous research that has primarily examined how psychological disorders (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD], anxiety) are affected by and affect individuals' threat perceptions, this study examines the relationship between combat experience and threat-monitoring in psychologically healthy Soldiers. Existing research has established how prolonged or intense experiences with war-related stressors can lead individuals to undergo an unconscious fear-conditioning process that affects the circuitry of the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and anterior cingulate cortex regions of the brain. We predict that the intensity of one's combat experience positively influences Soldiers' attention to environmental threats. Participants included U. S. Army Soldiers with a score of 50 or below on the PTSD Checklist-Military Version. Participants completed the Combat Exposure Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The experimental prediction task we employed assesses the expectation of an intrusively loud white noise sound that occurred on three variable patterns in a pseudorandomized order. Each tone pattern was used 20 times over a total of 60 trials. The experimental prediction task included two neutral tones (700 and 1,300 Hz) that were presented in a repeated pattern along with a 100-dB burst of white noise (0.5-second duration). In each trial, one of three possible tone combinations was presented. To assess their attentiveness to threats, participants were asked to continuously rate their expectancy of the burst of white noise using a visual analogue scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 100. VAS ratings were collected at controlled points throughout the task. None of the participants reported scores on any of the diagnostic surveys that met standards for clinical significance. A repeated-measures analysis of variance was conducted to assess the overall effect of the three prediction conditions on participants' VAS ratings. There was a significant main effect for Combat Exposure Scale scores on VAS ratings [F(1, 27) = 5.19, p = 0.031], with high scorers demonstrating a generally higher expectancy of the white noise burst throughout the entire experimental sequence. Results suggest that within subclinical populations of Soldiers, the intensity of one's combat experience is positively associated with their attention to threats. These findings suggest that Soldiers who experience combat should be observed for signs of increased threat-attention bias, as this may indicate that their capacities for information processing, decision-making, and emotion regulation could be compromised. The positive relationship we observe between a level of combat experience and attentional biases toward threatening stimuli may also help to explain why these veterans engage in "externalizing" behaviors that are risky, aggressive, or violent as well as relational problems and antisocial behaviors that are reported in higher-than-average rates among these populations of Soldiers. Acknowledging that increased threat attention may be a preclinical indication of developing PTSD or other related psychological conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety) should motivate clinicians to more actively diagnose and treat this condition.

Perceptual Errors in Chinese Language Processing: A Case Study of Czech learners

There are now a vast number of cross-linguistic studies that investigate how perceptual performance with non-native speech categories is constrained by the listener's native language. However, considering the acquisition of the Chinese language phonological system, studies examining the transfer from less frequent languages are rather rare. The aim of this paper is to fill the gap regarding Czech native speakers. Through examining errors in dictation tests, it introduces some difficulties experienced by beginner level Chinese students and thus provides insight on the perception of Chinese language segmental and suprasegmental features by Czech learners. The findings imply that while errors in initials and finals show a high influence of the native language, errors in disyllabic tonal combinations seem to follow the basic language-independent patterns that have been observed in previous studies.

Propranolol Degrades Memory Reconsolidation in Conditions of Single and Multiple Combinations of Tones with Pain

The effects of propranolol on the state of memory after its reactivation (in the reconsolidation phase) were studied using two approaches – classical Pavlovian conditioning and acquisition of a two-way escape reaction. The difference between them was that in the first case, the tone was combined with painful electrocutaneous stimulation just once, while in the latter it was combined multiple times. Reminding in the former case was induced by placing the animals in the same context in which primary training was performed, while in the latter the number of combinations of the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli was the same as that used on the first day of training. Administration of propranolol decreased the duration of freezing episodes by 25% compared with the baseline level in classical conditioning and led to essentially complete loss of memory and complete regression of the two-way escape reaction. It is suggested that the effects of blockade of the noradrenergic system on loss of memory in the reconsolidation stage in these learning models have different mechanisms.

A fundamental study of evaluating sound fields in performance spaces based on equal tempered scale

Generally, the reverberation times, energy decay curves, directional characteristics, and so on are analyzed in 1 octave bands or 1/3 octave bands for evaluating acoustic conditions in performance spaces. The center frequencies such as 1000 Hz are defined by engineering implication. However, these center frequencies are not always adequate for evaluating performance spaces because music is basically composed of musical scale like the equal tempered scale. Therefore, it is thought that it is reasonable to use center frequencies based on the equal tempered scale in order to evaluate performance spaces. Based on this idea, we calculated reverberation times and energy decay curves for 1/12 octave bands at which center frequencies are set by using the equal tempered scale. Directional characteristic of reflected sounds is an important factor for evaluating spatial impressions in performance spaces. Therefore, we measured the directional characteristics based on sound intensity in the 1/12 octave bands. Moreover, we focused on chord which is a combination of several musical tones, in other words, several 1/12 octave bands. We calculated energy decay curves and directional characteristics focusing on the chord. As a result, characteristic tendencies were obtained on the energy decay curves and the directional characteristics.

Measuring Cerebral Activation From fNIRS Signals: An Approach Based on Compressive Sensing and Taylor–Fourier Model

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive and portable neuroimaging technique that uses NIR light to monitor cerebral activity by the so-called haemodynamic responses (HRs). The measurement is challenging because of the presence of severe physiological noise, such as respiratory and vasomotor waves. In this paper, a novel technique for fNIRS signal denoising and HR estimation is described. The method relies on a joint application of compressed sensing theory principles and Taylor–Fourier modeling of nonstationary spectral components. It operates in the frequency domain and models physiological noise as a linear combination of sinusoidal tones, characterized in terms of frequency, amplitude, and initial phase. Algorithm performance is assessed over both synthetic and experimental data sets, and compared with that of two reference techniques from fNIRS literature.

Perpaduan Nada‐nada dalam Perspektif Harmoni dan Aplikasinya Terhadap Mahasiswa

The combination of tones in the diatonic musical study is called the harmony. Harmony here is intended for the human voice, that encompasses the soprano (S) for high female voice, the alto (A) for low female voice, the tenor (T) for high male voice, and the bass (B) for low male voice. Each sound has a different register, as it was introduced at the beginning part of many harmony text books, for example the one that was written by Gustav Strube. The initial step of tonesarrangements is based on the tonic, dominant, and sub‐dominant chords. Because the triad chord is consists of 3 notes only while the four voices are needed in the SATB arrangement, doubling the one of triad components is necessary. In addition to doubling treatment we should be aware of applying the proper chord positions, whether it is the basic position (bass doubling), the first inversion (soprano doubling), or the second inversion (bass doubling). In the fourth voices chord, eg the dominant seventh chords, although it is possible to treat the doubling by eliminating the element of its tone composite, it is not usually applied due to the number of its chord tones is already four. While in its application to the student, it is better to be based on the memorization of basic chords, for example major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords, after that continued by working on the triad chord, four voice chords, and also the neapolitan sixth.

Affective evaluation of simultaneous tone combinations in congenital amusia

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired pitch processing. Although pitch simultaneities are among the fundamental building blocks of Western tonal music, affective responses to simultaneities such as isolated dyads varying in consonance/dissonance or chords varying in major/minor quality have rarely been studied in amusic individuals. Thirteen amusics and thirteen matched controls enculturated to Western tonal music provided pleasantness ratings of sine-tone dyads and complex-tone dyads in piano timbre as well as perceived happiness/sadness ratings of sine-tone triads and complex-tone triads in piano timbre. Acoustical analyses of roughness and harmonicity were conducted to determine whether similar acoustic information contributed to these evaluations in amusics and controls. Amusic individuals' pleasantness ratings indicated sensitivity to consonance and dissonance for complex-tone (piano timbre) dyads and, to a lesser degree, sine-tone dyads, whereas controls showed sensitivity when listening to both tone types. Furthermore, amusic individuals showed some sensitivity to the happiness-major association in the complex-tone condition, but not in the sine-tone condition. Controls rated major chords as happier than minor chords in both tone types. Linear regression analyses revealed that affective ratings of dyads and triads by amusic individuals were predicted by roughness but not harmonicity, whereas affective ratings by controls were predicted by both roughness and harmonicity. We discuss affective sensitivity in congenital amusia in view of theories of affective responses to isolated chords in Western listeners.

Emotional Images of Knitwear According to the Color Combinations of Tone on Tone and Tone in Tone

The purpose of this study was to investigate emotional images of knitwear arising from different combinations of colors and tones. The subjects were 486 university students in Daejeon and Chungnam, South Korea. The measuring instruments were 8 stimuli of different color (red, blue) and tone(light, vivid) combinations, and self-administered questionnaires on emotional images and subjects’ demographic attributions. Using SPSS, the data were analyzed by Cronbach’s α, factor analysis, t-test, MANOVA and Duncan’s multiple range test. The results were as follows. First, five factors, attractiveness, visibility, gracefulness, comfort, and mildness, emerged as emotional images of knitwear. The most important factor was attractiveness. Second, when tone on tone combination was used, red knitwear exhibited more visibility and comfort than blue knitwear. Blue knitwear exhibited more gracefulness than the red. Color combination of light-toned background with vivid-toned pattern exhibited more mildness and less attractiveness than the color combination of vivid-toned background with light-toned pattern. Color combination of light-toned background with vivid-toned pattern is likely to take advantage as the design process of feminine style knitwear. The analysis of emotional images created by four stimuli using tone on tone combination revealed that there were meaningful differences in visibility, gracefulness, and mildness. Third, when tone in tone combination was used, red knitwear of blue pattern exhibited more visibility and mildness than the blue knitwear of red pattern. The background color that occupies larger portion of the cardigan played a more important role than the pattern color when it is perceived emotional images. Also, light tone showed more mildness than the vivid tone. The analysis of emotional images created by four stimuli using tone in tone combination revealed that mildness was the only difference. Forth, tone on tone combination showed more gracefulness and mildness than tone in tone combination. Tone on tone combination was more effective in delivering images of intelligence, gracefulness, femininity, and warmness than did tone in tone combination.

Measuring Musical Consonance and Dissonance

Most combinations of musical tones are perceived as either consonant, “pleasing” to the human ear, or dissonant, which is “not pleasing.” Despite being largely subjective in nature, sensations of consonance and dissonance can be quantified and then compared to the judgments of human subjects. The following is a description of several simple studies that can be carried out in the classroom of a physics of music or science of sound course.

An American Precursor of Non-tonal Theory: Ernst Bacon (1898-1990)

Ernst Bacon was one of the very first American theorists investigate aspects of extended tonality and atonality. At the age of nineteen, Bacon made his sole contribution music theory: a long article, Our Musical Idiom, which appeared the Chicago journal The Monist.! His intention was -classifY non-tonal scales and harmonies in a logical order and to develop a system of nomenclature describing any possible combination of tones. Our Musical Idiom is one of the earliest American contributions the non-tonal theoretical literature; it predates such European works as Josef Hauer's Yom Wesen des Musikalischen and Herbert Eimert's Atonale Lehrbuch.2

개념수채화를 반영한 스티븐 홀 작품의 공간색채 연구

Contemporary architecture is philosophy and art, and science are different that holds the architecture of human thought and behavior based on a variety of physical space. In addition, the technology is used by the new media graphics, lasers, LED, which were possible only in imagination, using tools such as the time-space of the potential for explosion. In particular, it was found in the spacial color of atypical using the nature of light. Such these architecture is space people actively experiencing a sense towards the expansion of its place. Therefore, the study purpose is to explore the Steven Holl's spacial colors to utilize the space is important to the possibility of light. He prefers the connection to the invisible world is inferred from the visible world and other space. He thoughts an idea linked to the concept watercolors which is a tool that holds to the notion of the flexibility of light and shadow. Concept watercolor is the idea space, establish space, recombinant space, and the growthy space. These have shown the no fixed spacial color cause of the combination of the different tones according to the characteristics of the mixed-color development of a concept watercolors demonstrated the spacial color of the replacement. That is to establish a parody of the works light blending spacial color.

The effect of adaptation on the tuning curves of rat auditory cortex.

Repeated stimulus causes a specific suppression of neuronal responses, which is so-called as Stimulus-Specific Adaptation (SSA). This effect can be recovered when the stimulus changes. In the auditory system SSA is a well-known phenomenon that appears at different levels of the mammalian auditory pathway. In this study, we explored the effects of adaptation to a particular stimulus on the auditory tuning curves of anesthetized rats. We used two sequences and compared the responses of each tone combination in these two conditions. First sequence consists of different pure tone combinations that were presented randomly. In the second one, the same stimuli of the first sequence were presented in the context of an adapted stimulus (adapter) that occupied 80% of sequence probability. The population results demonstrated that the adaptation factor decreased the frequency response area and made a change in the tuning curve to shift it unevenly toward the higher thresholds of tones. The local field potentials and multi-unit activity responses have indicated that the neural activities strength of the adapted frequency has been suppressed as well as with lower suppression in neighboring frequencies. This aforementioned reduction changed the characteristic frequency of the tuning curve.

Subjective Sensation of Color Differences – Determination of Thresholds Depending on Color Tones and Resolution

Abstract Colors are frequently defined by three points on the L*a*b* coordinates of the CIELAB color space, and the distance between two colors can be expressed as the total color difference ΔE. In particular with respect to reproducibility of print media color differences are an important parameter, as well as for car finishes and textile dyes. Color changes are also the result of ageing and weathering which is an issue for art objects and in the building and restoration sector. However, the subjective perceptibility of color differences depends on numerous factors and general thresholds are difficult to define. This study aimed therefore on defining tolerance levels for color changes in dependence of color tones and color tone combinations as well as their resolution. In total 30 test persons evaluated samples, which had been painted with acrylic artist colors with defined color differences (ΔE = 0–7). The test subjects realized color differences already at ΔE = 1–4 for the highest resolution. Threshold values have been identified for different tones as well as the effect of interdependencies between tones and the level of color heterogeneity between adjacent areas.

Individual aptitude in Mandarin lexical tone perception predicts effectiveness of high-variability training.

Although the high-variability training method can enhance learning of non-native speech categories, this can depend on individuals’ aptitude. The current study asked how general the effects of perceptual aptitude are by testing whether they occur with training materials spoken by native speakers and whether they depend on the nature of the to-be-learned material. Forty-five native Dutch listeners took part in a 5-day training procedure in which they identified bisyllabic Mandarin pseudowords (e.g., asa) pronounced with different lexical tone combinations. The training materials were presented to different groups of listeners at three levels of variability: low (many repetitions of a limited set of words recorded by a single speaker), medium (fewer repetitions of a more variable set of words recorded by three speakers), and high (similar to medium but with five speakers). Overall, variability did not influence learning performance, but this was due to an interaction with individuals’ perceptual aptitude: increasing variability hindered improvements in performance for low-aptitude perceivers while it helped improvements in performance for high-aptitude perceivers. These results show that the previously observed interaction between individuals’ aptitude and effects of degree of variability extends to natural tokens of Mandarin speech. This interaction was not found, however, in a closely matched study in which native Dutch listeners were trained on the Japanese geminate/singleton consonant contrast. This may indicate that the effectiveness of high-variability training depends not only on individuals’ aptitude in speech perception but also on the nature of the categories being acquired.

Mechanism of Disyllabic Tonal Reduction in Taiwan Mandarin.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that time pressure is a direct cause of tonal reduction in Taiwan Mandarin. Tonal reduction refers to the phenomenon of the tones of a disyllabic unit being contracted into a monosyllabic unit. An experiment was carried out in which six native Taiwan Mandarin male speakers produced sentences containing disyllabic compound words /ma/+/ma/ with varying tonal combinations at different speech rates. Analyses indicated that increasing time pressure led to severe tonal reductions. Articulatory effort, measured by the slope of F0 peak velocity of unidirectional movement over F0 movement amplitude, is insufficient to compensate for duration-dependent undershoot (in particular, when time pressure exceeds certain thresholds). Mechanisms of tonal reduction were further examined by comparing F0 velocity profiles against the Edge-in model, a rule-based phonological model. Results showed that the residual tonal variants in contracted syllables are gradient rather than categorical--as duration is shortened, the movement towards the desired targets is gradually curtailed.

Do syllable-specific tonal probabilities guide lexical access? Evidence from Mandarin, Shanghai and Cantonese speakers

An eye-tracking study investigated how the interaction between syllable frequency and syllable-specific tonal probability guides online lexical access in speakers of mutually unintelligible Chinese dialects with three disparate tonal systems. Mono-dialectal Mandarin speakers, bi-dialectal Shanghai–Mandarin speakers and bi-dialectal Cantonese–Mandarin speakers searched for target Mandarin syllable–tone combinations while their eye movements and mouse clicks were recorded. The results showed dialectal differences in online eye fixation patterns but not in offline mouse responses. For all groups, mouse clicks were fastest for infrequent syllables with most probable tones and slowest for infrequent syllables with least probable tones. In online eye movement responses, only mono-dialectal Mandarin speakers showed an interaction between syllable frequency and tonal probability. Mono-dialectal Mandarin speakers’ fixations were fastest for infrequent syllables with probable tones and slowest for infrequent syllables with improbable tones. Mono-dialectal speakers also showed a greater amount of competition from the more probable segmental competitor when hearing improbable tones. Bi-dialectal speakers showed different timing in their integration of tonal probabilities. These findings suggest that highly bilingual speakers track and use Mandarin tonal probabilities, but their sensitivity to L2 tonal information may lag behind monolinguals for online word recognition.