Mandarin-Speaking Children’s Speech Recognition: Developmental Changes in the Influences of Semantic Context and F(0) Contours

The goal of this developmental speech perception study was to assess whether and how age group modulated the influences of high-level semantic context and low-level fundamental frequency (F(0)) contours on the recognition of Mandarin speech by elementary and middle-school-aged children in quiet and interference backgrounds. The results revealed different patterns for semantic and F(0) information. One the one hand, age group modulated significantly the use of F(0) contours, indicating that elementary school children relied more on natural F(0) contours than middle school children during Mandarin speech recognition. On the other hand, there was no significant modulation effect of age group on semantic context, indicating that children of both age groups used semantic context to assist speech recognition to a similar extent. Furthermore, the significant modulation effect of age group on the interaction between F(0) contours and semantic context revealed that younger children could not make better use of semantic context in recognizing speech with flat F(0) contours compared with natural F(0) contours, while older children could benefit from semantic context even when natural F(0) contours were altered, thus confirming the important role of F(0) contours in Mandarin speech recognition by elementary school children. The developmental changes in the effects of high-level semantic and low-level F(0) information on speech recognition might reflect the differences in auditory and cognitive resources associated with processing of the two types of information in speech perception.