Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
Published on: September 27, 2024
Perceptual asymmetries in the development of lexical tone perception in Thai-learning children
Antonia Götz1, Suparuthai Sumonwiriya2, Benjawa Kasisopa1
1The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, https://ror.org/03t52dk35Western Sydney University, Australia.
Abstract:
Discrimination of vowel and consonant pairs is influenced by their order, known as perceptual asymmetry, and recent research suggests a similar effect for lexical tones. This study tested whether discrimination of two consecutive tones is easier when a dynamic contour tone (e.g., rising/falling) precedes a static-level tone (e.g., low/high) than vice versa. Thai-speaking children aged 4, 6, and 8 years and adults completed an AX task with four tone pairs in dynamic-static and static-dynamic orders. Adults showed no perceptual asymmetry, possibly due to ceiling effects. However, children in all three age groups discriminated dynamic-static pairs better than static-dynamic pairs. Although tone discrimination improved across age groups, the magnitude of the dynamic-static over static-dynamic advantage remained stable. These findings reveal a dynamic-static bias in tone perception that emerges before age four and remains stable into the school years. Implications for segmental asymmetries and theories of speech perception are discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Perception of Sound Waves
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same frequency...
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...
Lateralization
Auditory Perception
Language and Cognition
