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Related Experiment Videos

Lexical tone in Cantonese spoken-word processing

A Cutler1, H C Chen

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. anne.cutler@mpi.nl

Perception & Psychophysics
|February 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary
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Cantonese listeners sometimes confuse words and nonwords differing only in lexical tone. Tone processing may be slower than segmental processing, leading to errors in rapid speech perception.

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Speech Perception
  • Acoustic Phonetics

Background:

  • Lexical tone is crucial for meaning in tonal languages like Cantonese.
  • Understanding how listeners process tonal information is key to speech perception research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the processing of lexical tone in Cantonese.
  • To determine if tone processing is inherently slower than segmental processing.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted with Cantonese listeners.
  • Nonword-word acceptance and same-different syllable judgments were used.
  • Stimuli varied only in lexical tone, with controlled fundamental frequency (F0) onset differences.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Listeners accepted nonwords as words more often when only tone differed, especially with small F0 onset differences.
  • Same-different judgments were slower and less accurate for tone-only differences, regardless of F0 onset difference size.
  • Non-native listeners showed similar patterns, suggesting perceptual rather than linguistic effects.

Conclusions:

  • Lexical tone processing may be slower than segmental processing.
  • In speeded tasks, tonal distinctions are more prone to misprocessing than segmental features.