Acoustic-perceptual correlates of whispered Mandarin consonants

This study aims to explore the acoustic-perceptual correlates of whispered Mandarin consonants. The acoustic features of whispered consonants in Mandarin in comparison to their phonated counterparts and their perceptual correlates were analyzed. The acoustic measurements included word duration, consonant duration, closure duration, and frication duration of plosives and affricatives as well as the intensity and spectral moments. Perceptual experiments examined identification accuracy and confusion matrices. The acoustic analyses showed that whispered consonants have longer durations. The intensities of consonants, especially nasals and semivowels, were lower in whispered conditions but the relative intensity of most whispered consonants became higher, except for nasals. The spectral moments of whispered fricatives and affricatives did not change significantly, and the duration distinction was preserved, although narrowed. The perceptual results showed that listeners had lower but still high consonant recognition accuracy (above 75%), possibly owing to the preserved spectral moments, duration distinction of aspiration and other acoustic features. The perceptions of nasal and aspiration distinctions were substantially influenced by whispering, which could be attributable to the lower intensity, the absence of vocal cord vibration, and the narrower duration distinction of aspiration. These findings enrich our understanding of the production and perception mechanisms of whispered consonants.