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Pitch perception of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence for parallel encoding via additive division of pitch range

Liu, X; Xu, Y; (2016) Pitch perception of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence for parallel encoding via additive division of pitch range. In: Tonal Aspects of Languages 2016. (pp. pp. 129-132). ISCA Green open access

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Abstract

This study addressed the question of how multiple layers of meanings can be simultaneously encoded with F0 in speech by assessing pitch perception thresholds of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese. We synthetically increased the pitch height of one syllable in a sentence up to 12 semitones from its neutral baseline in one-semitone steps, and asked listeners to judge the strength of focus and surprise conveyed by the manipulated utterances. Results showed that for the perception of focus, at least 4 semitones above the baseline were needed while for surprise, at least 7 semitones above were needed. Despite the threshold difference, there was a downward overlap of surprise with focus, i.e., the range of 7-12 semitones above the baseline signalled both focus and surprise. These results suggest that the pitch perception threshold for focus in Mandarin may be higher than that in non-tonal languages due to the use of F0 for lexical contrast in Mandarin. They also reveal, more intriguingly, an encoding mechanism of additive division of pitch range. That is, a higher-level function such as surprise is encoded by using additional pitch ranges beyond that used by lower-level functions such as focus and lexical tone, without harming the encoding of the lower-level functions.

Type: Proceedings paper
Title: Pitch perception of focus and surprise in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence for parallel encoding via additive division of pitch range
Event: Tonal Aspects of Languages - 5th International Symposium
Location: Buffalo, NY, United States
Dates: 24 May 2017 - 27 May 2017
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.21437/TAL.2016-28
Publisher version: http://isca-speech.org/archive/TAL_2016/
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2016 ISCA
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1536165
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