Tone Identification Research Articles

The Effect of Visual Articulatory Cues on the Identification of Mandarin Tones by Children With Cochlear Implants.

This study explored the facilitatory effect of visual articulatory cues on the identification of Mandarin lexical tones by children with cochlear implants (CIs) in both quiet and noisy environments. It also explored whether early implantation is associated with better use of visual cues in tonal identification. Participants included 106 children with CIs and 100 normal-hearing (NH) controls. A tonal identification task was employed using a two-alternative forced-choice picture-pointing paradigm. Participants' tonal identification accuracies were compared between audio-only (AO) and audiovisual (AV) modalities. Correlations between implantation ages and visual benefits (accuracy differences between AO and AV modalities) were also examined. Children with CIs demonstrated an improved identification accuracy from AO to AV modalities in the noisy environment. Additionally, earlier implantation was significantly correlated with a greater visual benefit in noise. These findings indicated that children with CIs benefited from visual cues on tonal identification in noise, and early implantation enhanced the visual benefit. These results thus have practical implications on tonal perception interventions for Mandarin-speaking children with CIs.

Tonal identification in whispered speech

This project aims to examine whether, and how, non-F0 cues facilitate the identification of lexical tones. A perception experiment is designed to explicitly test the impact of duration cues for Mandarin lexical tones when F0 is absent. We take a novel approach in which the secondary cue of interest is held constant, effectively controlling the type of information listeners receive. Future studies can potentially extend this methodology to examine other relevant cues, such as temporal envelope and intensity. The contribution of this paper is twofold: first, to propose an explanation for the inconsistent conclusions drawn in the literature on tonal identification in whispered speech; second, to devise a more well-controlled study shedding light on the nature of tonal perception.

Enhancing Foundation Shade Suggestions through Skin Tone Identification

As we concentrate on addressing the challenges in responsible beauty product recommendation, particularly when it involves comparing the product’s color with a person’s skin tone, similar as for foundation and robe p conditions. The features uprooted using the prints from illuminated terrain can be largely deceiving or indeed be inharmonious to be compared with the product attributes. Hence bad illumination condition can oppressively degrade quality of the recommendation. We introduce a machine learning frame for illumination assessment which classifies images into having moreover good or bad illumination condition. We also make an automatic stoner guidance tool which informs a stoner holding their camera if their illumination condition is good or bad. This way, the stoner is handed with rapid-fire feedback and can interactively control how the print is taken for their recommendation. Only a many studies are devoted to this problem, substantially due to the lack of dataset that's large, labeled, and different both in terms of skin tones and light patterns. Lack of similar dataset leads to neglecting skin tone diversity. Thus, we begin by constructing a different synthetic dataset that simulates colorful skin tones and light patterns in addition to a being facial image dataset. Next, we train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for illumination assessment that outperforms the being results using the synthetic dataset. Eventually, we dissect how the work improves the shade recommendation for colorful foundation products

Production rather than observation: comparison between the roles of embodiment and conceptual metaphor in L2 lexical tone learning

BackgroundIt remains unclear how embodiment and conceptual metaphor play a role in second language (L2) lexical tone learning. AimsThe present study aimed to examine the roles of pitch gesture production (PP), pitch feature observation (PO), and word-picture association (WA) approach in L2 lexical tone learning. SampleParticipants were 90 undergraduate students with Mandarin as their native language. MethodsParticipants learned Thai lexical tones via the three approaches and completed tone discrimination, tone identification, and word-picture matching tasks. ResultsThe PP performed better than the PO and WA in discriminating between and identifying specific tones. The PP was more accurate than the WA in word-picture matching. ConclusionsThe pitch gesture production's embodiment was superior to the pitch feature observation's conceptual metaphor in learning L2 lexical tones. However, its role was affected by lexical tones' pitch features, test tasks, and learners' tonal experience.

Disambiguation of Isolated Manipuri Tonal Contrast Word Pairs Using Acoustic Features

Manipuri is a low-resource, Tibeto-Burman tonal language spoken mainly in Manipur, a northeastern state of India. Tone identification is crucial to speech comprehension for tonal languages, where tone defines the word’s meaning. Automatic Speech Recognition for those languages can perform better by including tonal information from a powerful tone detection system. While significant research has been conducted on tonal languages like Mandarin, Thai, Cantonese, and Vietnamese, a notable gap exists in exploring Manipuri within this context. To address this gap, this work expands our previously developed handcrafted speech corpus, ManiTo, which comprises isolated Manipuri tonal contrast word pairs to study the tones of Manipuri. This extension includes contributions from 20 native speakers. Preliminary findings have confirmed that Manipuri has two unique tones, Falling and Level. The study then conducts a comprehensive acoustic feature analysis. Two sets of features based on Pitch contours, Jitter, and Shimmer measurements are investigated to distinguish the two tones of Manipuri. Support Vector Machine, Long Short-term Memory, Random Forest, and k-Nearest Neighbors are the classifiers adopted to validate the selected feature sets. The results indicate that the second set of features consistently outperformed the first set, demonstrating higher accuracy, particularly when utilizing the Random Forest classifier, which provides valuable insights for further advancements in speech recognition technology for low-resource tonal language Manipuri.

Lesbian Lives in Soviet Latvia: The Narratives

This article employs narrative analysis to examine three testimonies provided by individuals who were contemporaries of lesbians in Soviet Latvia. The author’s research is based on two oral history interviews and the diary entries of a homosexual man, dating between the 1950s and 1980s. The research was carried out in four stages: (1) story analysis; (2) identification of main topics and characters; (3) identification of main terms and tone; and (4) extraction of three key narratives. The findings demonstrate, firstly, the lack of terminology to describe homosexual/non-heterosexual relationships between women when referencing the Soviet time. This indicates that contemporary terms used by the LGBTQI+ community may not be valid for analysing the experiences of non-heterosexual people in Soviet Latvia. Secondly, the testimonies described in this article view same-sex women’s relationships through heteronormative lens as deviating from the norm. Thirdly, the article highlights how rigid expectations of “manly” and “womanly” behaviour and traits are used to judge compliance with or deviation from societal norms. The understanding of non-heterosexual relationships between women, as evidenced by the sources, cannot be standardised. While the testimonies reference non-heterosexual relationships between women, they also mention same-sex relationships, which may have formed due to socioeconomic conditions and different intimate bonds.

Prior knowledge benefits older adults' tonal consolidation through talker generalization

Recent research indicated that post-training sleep facilitates memory consolidation and talker generalization in young adults' tone learning. For instance, a nap study showed the newly learned tonal contrast that relates to prior knowledge consolidated more rapidly than that does not after daytime naps. Notably, older adults' declarative memory consolidation is impaired with age-related changes in sleep architecture. The current study examines whether prior (contour-tone) knowledge benefits Mandarin-speaking older adults' Cantonese tone learning. Mandarin employs pitch contours (falling versus rising) to cue tones in signaling word identity. Besides pitch contours, Cantonese also utilizes pitch heights (higher versus lower) in level tones to encode word meanings. In the pilot phase (60 Mandarin-speaking older adults will be recruited with data collection ongoing), participants were trained to learn Cantonese contour-level and level-level contrasts in the evening or the morning. A novel word-object identification task was used in the training, followed by three tone identification tasks: a posttest immediately after training, a 12-h delayed posttest (a trained talker), and another delayed posttest (a novel talker). Aligned with the nap study, preliminary results suggested overnight sleep might enhance seniors' tone-related memory by promoting generalization across talkers in learning contour-level contrast owing to their prior contour-tone knowledge.

Cross-Language Perception of Lexical Tones by Nordic Learners of Mandarin Chinese

While existing cross-language studies on the perception of non-native tones primarily focus on naïve listeners, this study addresses an obvious gap by investigating learners from diverse language backgrounds. Specifically, it investigates Mandarin tone perception in two groups of learners from Nordic languages, Swedish (a pitch-accent language), and Danish (a non-tonal language), as well as in a group of native Chinese speakers. Analysis of their performance in tone identification task revealed a slight advantage for Swedish learners, implying the influence of their pitch accent background in learning Mandarin tones. However, both Swedish and Danish learners who excelled in the tone identification task exhibited similar perception of within-category tonal variations but differed from native Chinese speakers. Additionally, the study found that the presence of length contrast, a prosodic feature in the learners’ native languages, significantly influences their perception of Mandarin tones.

Unravelling Emotional Tones: A Hybrid Optimized Model for Sentiment Analysis in Tamil Regional Languages

Review comments from digital platform such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube used for identification of emotional tones from text. Nowadays, reviews are posted in different languages such as English, French, Chinese, and Indian regional languages such as Tamil, Telegu, and Hindi. Identification of emotional tones from text written in Indian regional language is challenging. During the translation of the regional language to the English language for sentiment analysis, lexical and pragmatic ambiguity are the major problem. The above problem arises due to dialects in language such as regional, standard, and social dialects. In this paper, dialect-based ambiguity problems solve through proposed Hybrid optimized deep learning transformer Models like M-BERT, M-Roberta, and M-XLM-Roberta for Tamil language dialects recognise and classified. The proposed algorithms provide better sentimental analysis after Hybrid optimization due to adaptation mechanisms, dynamic changes in the parameters and strategies in fine-tuning the search. The proposed Hybrid optimized algorithms perform better than existing algorithms such as SVM, Naïve Bayes, and LSTM with an accuracy of 95%.

Using L1 tone and intonation categories to investigate patterns in nonnative tone identification

Many languages utilise lexical tone, a feature which assigns meaning to words through variations in pitch contours. In some (but not all) cases, prior tone language experience can facilitate the learning of a nonnative tone language. Regardless, multiple sessions of tone training can improve nonnative tone perception for both tone and nontone L1 listeners. However, the influence of L1 tone and intonation categories on nonnative tone learning is underexplored. Across five sessions of tone training, listeners of nontonal English (n = 25), tonal Mandarin (n = 23), and tonal Vietnamese (n = 25) learned tones from an artificial language. While all groups improved in tone identification and tone word learning by session five (p < .001), Mandarin listeners outperformed the other groups overall (identification, p < .001; word learning, p < .05). Tone experience was a main effect only in word learning (p < .05). Tone- and language-specific identification patterns were also observed. The low level tone was easier for all listeners to perceive, while the tonal groups also showed greater accuracy for the mid level tone. Contrastingly, Mandarin listeners were hindered by their single L1 falling tone category when attempting to identify two distinct nonnative falling tones.

Multi-modal cross-linguistic perception of Mandarin tones in clear speech.

Clearly enunciated speech (relative to conversational, plain speech) involves articulatory and acoustic modifications that enhance auditory-visual (AV) segmental intelligibility. However, little research has explored clear-speech effects on the perception of suprasegmental properties such as lexical tone, particularly involving visual (facial) perception. Since tone production does not primarily rely on vocal tract configurations, tones may be less visually distinctive. Questions thus arise as to whether clear speech can enhance visual tone intelligibility, and if so, whether any intelligibility gain can be attributable to tone-specific category-enhancing (code-based) clear-speech cues or tone-general saliency-enhancing (signal-based) cues. The present study addresses these questions by examining the identification of clear and plain Mandarin tones with visual-only, auditory-only, and AV input modalities by native (Mandarin) and nonnative (English) perceivers. Results show that code-based visual and acoustic clear tone modifications, although limited, affect both native and nonnative intelligibility, with category-enhancing cues increasing intelligibility and category-blurring cues decreasing intelligibility. In contrast, signal-based cues, which are extensively available, do not benefit native intelligibility, although they contribute to nonnative intelligibility gain. These findings demonstrate that linguistically relevant visual tonal cues are existent. In clear speech, such tone category-enhancing cues are incorporated with saliency-enhancing cues across AV modalities for intelligibility improvements.

Development of Mandarin Lexical Tone Identification in Noise and Its Relation With Working Memory.

This study aimed to examine the developmental trajectory of Mandarin tone identification in quiet and two noisy conditions: speech-shaped noise (SSN) and multitalker babble noise. In addition, we evaluated the relationship between tonal identification development and working memory capacity. Ninety-three typically developing children aged 5-8 years and 23 young adults completed categorical identification of two tonal continua (Tone 1-4 and Tone 2-3) in quiet, SSN, and babble noise. Their working memory was additionally measured using auditory digit span tests. Correlation analyses between digit span scores and boundary widths were performed. Six-year-old children have achieved the adultlike ability of categorical identification of Tone 1-4 continuum under both types of noise. Moreover, 6-year-old children could identify Tone 2-3 continuum as well as adults in SSN. Nonetheless, the child participants, even 8-year-olds, performed worse when tokens from Tone 2-3 continuum were masked by babble noise. Greater working memory capacity was associated with better tone identification in noise for preschoolers aged 5-6 years; however, for school-age children aged 7-8 years, such correlation only existed in Tone 2-3 continuum in SSN. Lexical tone perception might take a prolonged time to achieve adultlike competence in babble noise relative to SSN. Moreover, a significant interaction between masking type and stimulus difficulty was found, as indicated by Tone 2-3 being more susceptible to interference from babble noise than Tone 1-4. Furthermore, correlations between working memory capacity and tone perception in noise varied with developmental stage, stimulus difficulty, and masking type.

The choice of musical instrument matters: Effect of pitched but not unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning

AbstractThe present study investigated the differential effects of pitched and unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning. We recruited 44 Cantonese-pitched musicians, unpitched musicians, and non-musicians. They completed a Thai tone identification task and seven sessions of Thai tone word learning. In the tone identification task, the pitched musicians outperformed the non-musicians but the unpitched musicians did not. In session 1 of the tone word learning task, the three groups showed similar accuracies. In session 7, the pitched musicians outperformed the non-musicians but the unpitched musicians did not. The results indicate that the musical advantage in tone identification and word learning hinges on pitched musicianship. From a theoretical perspective, these findings support the precision element of the OPERA hypothesis. Broadly, they reflect the need to consider the heterogeneity of musicianship when studying music-to-language transfer. Practically, the findings highlight the potential of pitched music training in enhancing tone word learning proficiency. Furthermore, the choice of musical instrument may matter to music-to-language transfer.

Emotional tones of voice affect the acoustics and perception of Mandarin tones.

Lexical tones and emotions are conveyed by a similar set of acoustic parameters; therefore, listeners of tonal languages face the challenge of processing lexical tones and emotions in the acoustic signal concurrently. This study examined how emotions affect the acoustics and perception of Mandarin tones. In Experiment 1, Mandarin tones were produced by professional actors with angry, fear, happy, sad, and neutral tones of voice. Acoustic analyses on mean F0, F0 range, mean amplitude, and duration were conducted on syllables excised from a carrier phrase. The results showed that emotions affect Mandarin tone acoustics to different degrees depending on specific Mandarin tones and specific emotions. In Experiment 2, selected syllables from Experiment 1 were presented in isolation or in context. Listeners were asked to identify the Mandarin tones and emotions of the syllables. The results showed that emotions affect Mandarin tone identification to a greater extent than Mandarin tones affect emotion recognition. Both Mandarin tones and emotions were identified more accurately in syllables presented with the carrier phrase, but the carrier phrase affected Mandarin tone identification and emotion recognition to different degrees. These findings suggest that lexical tones and emotions interact in complex but systematic ways.

Development of Achieving Constancy in Lexical Tone Identification With Contextual Cues.

The aim of this study was to explore when and how Mandarin-speaking children use contextual cues to normalize speech variability in perceiving lexical tones. Two different cognitive mechanisms underlying speech normalization (lower level acoustic normalization and higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization) were investigated through the lexical tone identification task in nonspeech contexts and speech contexts, respectively. Besides, another aim of this study was to reveal how domain-general cognitive abilities contribute to the development of the speech normalization process. In this study, 94 five- to eight-year-old Mandarin-speaking children (50 boys, 44 girls) and 24 young adults (14 men, 10 women) were asked to identify ambiguous Mandarin high-level and mid-rising tones in either speech or nonspeech contexts. Furthermore, in this study, we tested participants' pitch sensitivity through a nonlinguistic pitch discrimination task and their working memory using the digit span task. Higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization of lexical tones emerged at the age of 6 years and was relatively stable thereafter. However, lower level acoustic normalization was less stable across different ages. Neither pitch sensitivity nor working memory affected children's lexical tone normalization. Mandarin-speaking children above 6 years of age successfully achieved constancy in lexical tone normalization based on speech contextual cues. The perceptual normalization of lexical tones was not affected by pitch sensitivity and working memory capacity.

Tone evaluation of Ling sound test in Mandarin tone version.

The Ling sound test cannot provide the test of Chinese tone for preschool children with hearing aid and cochlear implants. The paper tries to design a new tone test method composed of the Ling sound test and four Chinese tones to evaluate the hearing level of Chinese hearing-impaired children. The tone identification rates of 20 cochlear implant children were statistically analyzed to verify the validity of the Ling sound test in the Chinese tone version. In addition, this paper analyzed the pronunciation characteristics of the Ling sound test in the Chongqing-accented Mandarin version of 20 subjects. The identification rate of Ling six sounds was more than 97.0%, the identification rate of tone was more than 81.0%, and the identification rate of vowels was 83.1%, which was higher than that of consonants 79.0%. The Ling sound test n the Chongqing-accented Mandarin version has a narrower frequency range. The results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the Ling sound test in the Chinese tone version in the assessment of frequency range and tone identification for cochlear implant users.

Sustainable Benefits of High Variability Phonetic Training in Mandarin-speaking Kindergarteners With Cochlear Implants: Evidence From Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones.

Although pitch reception poses a great challenge for individuals with cochlear implants (CIs), formal auditory training (e.g., high variability phonetic training [HVPT]) has been shown to provide direct benefits in pitch-related perceptual performances such as lexical tone recognition for CI users. As lexical tones in spoken language are expressed with a multitude of distinct spectral, temporal, and intensity cues, it is important to determine the sources of training benefits for CI users. The purpose of the present study was to conduct a rigorous fine-scale evaluation with the categorical perception (CP) paradigm to control the acoustic parameters and test the efficacy and sustainability of HVPT for Mandarin-speaking pediatric CI recipients. The main hypothesis was that HVPT-induced perceptual learning would greatly enhance CI users' ability to extract the primary pitch contours from spoken words for lexical tone identification and discrimination. Furthermore, individual differences in immediate and long-term gains from training would likely be attributable to baseline performance and duration of CI use. Twenty-eight prelingually deaf Mandarin-speaking kindergarteners with CIs were tested. Half of them received five sessions of HVPT within a period of 3 weeks. The other half served as control who did not receive the formal training. Two classical CP tasks on a tonal continuum from Mandarin tone 1 (high-flat in pitch) to tone 2 (mid-rising in pitch) with fixed acoustic features of duration and intensity were administered before (pretest), immediately after (posttest), and 10 weeks posttraining termination (follow-up test). Participants were instructed to either label a speech stimulus along the continuum (i.e., identification task) or determine whether a pair of stimuli separated by zero or two steps from the continuum was the same or different (i.e., discrimination task). Identification function measures (i.e., boundary position and boundary width) and discrimination function scores (i.e., between-category score, within-category score, and peakedness score) were assessed for each child participant across the three test sessions. Linear mixed-effects (LME) models showed significant training-induced enhancement in lexical tone categorization with significantly narrower boundary width and better between-category discrimination in the immediate posttest over pretest for the trainees. Furthermore, training-induced gains were reliably retained in the follow-up test 10 weeks after training. By contrast, no significant changes were found in the control group across sessions. Regression analysis confirmed that baseline performance (i.e., boundary width in the pretest session) and duration of CI use were significant predictors for the magnitude of training-induced benefits. The stringent CP tests with synthesized stimuli that excluded acoustic cues other than the pitch contour and were never used in training showed strong evidence for the efficacy of HVPT in yielding immediate and sustained improvement in lexical tone categorization for Mandarin-speaking children with CIs. The training results and individual differences have remarkable implications for developing personalized computer-based short-term HVPT protocols that may have sustainable long-term benefits for aural rehabilitation in this clinical population.

Categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese people with post-stroke aphasia

ABSTRACT This study used the categorical perception (CP) paradigm, a fine-grained perceptual method, to investigate the perceptual performance of lexical tones in Chinese people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA). Twenty patients with post-stroke aphasia (10 Broca’s and 10 Wernicke’s) and ten neurologically intact age-matched control participants were recruited to complete both identification and discrimination tasks of the Mandarin Tone 1–2 continuum. In addition, all participants completed tests on their auditory comprehension ability and working memory. The results showed that both Broca’s and Wernicke’s patients exhibited reduced sensitivity to within-category and between-category information but preserved CP of lexical tones. The degree of CP of lexical tones related to working memory in aphasic patients. Furthermore, lower-level acoustic processing underpinned higher-level phonological processing on the CP of lexical tones since both patient groups’ unbalanced pitch processing ability extended to their CP of lexical tones. These findings are significant for researchers and clinicians in speech-language rehabilitation, clinical psychology, and cognitive communication.

Native language experience with tones influences both phonetic and lexical processes when acquiring a second tonal language

Second language acquisition of lexical tones requires that a learner form appropriate tone categories and bind those categories to lexical representations for fluent word recognition. Research has shown that second language (L2) learners with no previous tone language experience can become highly accurate at identification of tones in isolation, but, even at advanced levels, have difficulty using tones to differentiate real words from nonwords. The present research considers the same skills in L2 learners who do have previous tone experience. Using largely the same tasks and stimuli previously used with English speakers in Pelzl, Lau, Guo, & DeKeyser (2021a) (“PLGD21”), we examined the tone identification and (tone) word recognition abilities of thirty-three Vietnamese speakers who had achieved advanced L2 proficiency in Mandarin. Results indicate that Vietnamese speakers experience different tone identification difficulties than English speakers, presumably due to interference from their native language tone categories. However, unlike English speakers in previous studies, Vietnamese speakers did not display differences in lexical decision accuracy for vowel and tone nonwords. These results provide evidence of the complexities of cross-linguistic influence, illustrating that the influence of native language tones can be illuminated by considering perception and acquisition at multiple levels.

Visual-Auditory Integration and High-Variability Speech Can Facilitate Mandarin Chinese Tone Identification.

Previous studies have demonstrated that tone identification can be facilitated when auditory tones are integrated with visual information that depicts the pitch contours of the auditory tones (hereafter, visual effect). This study investigates this visual effect in combined visual-auditory integration with high- and low-variability speech and examines whether one's prior tonal-language learning experience shapes the strength of this visual effect. Thirty Mandarin-naïve listeners, 25 Mandarin second language learners, and 30 native Mandarin listeners participated in a tone identification task in which participants judged whether an auditory tone was rising or falling in pitch. Moving arrows depicted the pitch contours of the auditory tones. A priming paradigm was used with the target auditory tones primed by four multimodal conditions: no stimuli (A-V-), visual-only stimuli (A-V+), auditory-only stimuli (A+V-), and both auditory and visual stimuli (A+V+). For Mandarin naïve listeners, the visual effect in accuracy produced under the cross-modal integration (A+V+ vs. A+V-) was superior to a unimodal approach (A-V+ vs. A-V-), as evidenced by a higher d prime of A+V+ as opposed to A+V-. However, this was not the case in response time. Additionally, the visual effect in accuracy and response time under the unimodal approach only occurred for high-variability speech, not for low-variability speech. Across the three groups of listeners, we found that the less tonal-language learning experience one had, the stronger the visual effect. Our study revealed the visual-auditory advantage and disadvantage of the visual effect and the joint contribution of visual-auditory integration and high-variability speech on facilitating tone perception via the process of speech symbolization and categorization. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21357729.