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Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information

Using Best’s (1995) perceptual assimilation model (PAM), we investigated auditory–visual (AV), auditory-only (AO), and visual-only (VO) perception of Thai tones. Mandarin and Cantonese (tone-language) speakers were asked to categorize Thai tones according to their own native tone categories, and Aus...

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Autores principales: Reid, Amanda, Burnham, Denis, Kasisopa, Benjawan, Reilly, Ronan, Attina, Virginie, Rattanasone, Nan Xu, Best, Catherine T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4335097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25465395
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-014-0791-3
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author Reid, Amanda
Burnham, Denis
Kasisopa, Benjawan
Reilly, Ronan
Attina, Virginie
Rattanasone, Nan Xu
Best, Catherine T.
author_facet Reid, Amanda
Burnham, Denis
Kasisopa, Benjawan
Reilly, Ronan
Attina, Virginie
Rattanasone, Nan Xu
Best, Catherine T.
author_sort Reid, Amanda
collection PubMed
description Using Best’s (1995) perceptual assimilation model (PAM), we investigated auditory–visual (AV), auditory-only (AO), and visual-only (VO) perception of Thai tones. Mandarin and Cantonese (tone-language) speakers were asked to categorize Thai tones according to their own native tone categories, and Australian English (non-tone-language) speakers to categorize Thai tones into their native intonation categories—for instance, question or statement. As comparisons, Thai participants completed a straightforward identification task, and another Australian English group identified the Thai tones using simple symbols. All of the groups also completed an AX discrimination task. Both the Mandarin and Cantonese groups categorized AO and AV Thai falling tones as their native level tones, and Thai rising tones as their native rising tones, although the Mandarin participants found it easier to categorize Thai level tones than did the Cantonese participants. VO information led to very poor categorization for all groups, and AO and AV information also led to very poor categorizations for the English intonation categorization group. PAM’s predictions regarding tone discriminability based on these category assimilation patterns were borne out for the Mandarin group’s AO and AV discriminations, providing support for the applicability of the PAM to lexical tones. For the Cantonese group, however, PAM was unable to account for one specific discrimination pattern—namely, their relatively good performance on the Thai high–rising contrast in the auditory conditions—and no predictions could be derived for the English groups. A full account of tone assimilation will likely need to incorporate considerations of phonetic, and even acoustic, similarity and overlap between nonnative and native tone categories.
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spelling pubmed-43350972015-02-24 Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information Reid, Amanda Burnham, Denis Kasisopa, Benjawan Reilly, Ronan Attina, Virginie Rattanasone, Nan Xu Best, Catherine T. Atten Percept Psychophys Article Using Best’s (1995) perceptual assimilation model (PAM), we investigated auditory–visual (AV), auditory-only (AO), and visual-only (VO) perception of Thai tones. Mandarin and Cantonese (tone-language) speakers were asked to categorize Thai tones according to their own native tone categories, and Australian English (non-tone-language) speakers to categorize Thai tones into their native intonation categories—for instance, question or statement. As comparisons, Thai participants completed a straightforward identification task, and another Australian English group identified the Thai tones using simple symbols. All of the groups also completed an AX discrimination task. Both the Mandarin and Cantonese groups categorized AO and AV Thai falling tones as their native level tones, and Thai rising tones as their native rising tones, although the Mandarin participants found it easier to categorize Thai level tones than did the Cantonese participants. VO information led to very poor categorization for all groups, and AO and AV information also led to very poor categorizations for the English intonation categorization group. PAM’s predictions regarding tone discriminability based on these category assimilation patterns were borne out for the Mandarin group’s AO and AV discriminations, providing support for the applicability of the PAM to lexical tones. For the Cantonese group, however, PAM was unable to account for one specific discrimination pattern—namely, their relatively good performance on the Thai high–rising contrast in the auditory conditions—and no predictions could be derived for the English groups. A full account of tone assimilation will likely need to incorporate considerations of phonetic, and even acoustic, similarity and overlap between nonnative and native tone categories. Springer US 2014-12-03 2015 /pmc/articles/PMC4335097/ /pubmed/25465395 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-014-0791-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2014 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.
spellingShingle Article
Reid, Amanda
Burnham, Denis
Kasisopa, Benjawan
Reilly, Ronan
Attina, Virginie
Rattanasone, Nan Xu
Best, Catherine T.
Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title_full Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title_fullStr Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title_full_unstemmed Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title_short Perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: The roles of language experience and visual information
title_sort perceptual assimilation of lexical tone: the roles of language experience and visual information
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4335097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25465395
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-014-0791-3
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