[The review of categorization features of tone perception]

Categorical perception (CP) is the unique phenomenon that gradually morphed physical feature in a stimulus continuum tends to be perceived as discrete representations. CP has been evidenced in several modalities in the sensor perception. The first study of CP of phonetic perception was performed in 1957. However, the early CP studies focused on segmental features. The first study of CP of pitch contours was performed until 1976. This article will review the results of previous studies focus on the categorical perception applies to the lexical tone perception.