The Perception of Lexical Tone in Whispered Speech by Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics

Gaoyuan Zhang, Jing Shao, Lan Wang, Caicai Zhang

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceedingConference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopment disorder of musical pitch processing, which also affects lexical tone perception in tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese. In this study we aimed to investigate how congenital amusia affects lexical tone recognition without pitch information. Nineteen Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics and 19 matched controls were tested on lexical tone identification in both phonated and whispered speech. The results revealed that the performance of congenital amusics was inferior to that of controls in lexical tone identification in both phonated and whispered speech, but the differences between the two groups were smaller in whispered speech. Moreover, the identification of Tone 3 and Tone 4 was easier than that of Tone 2 and Tone 1 in whispered tone for both groups. The results indicate that the primary disorder of amusia lies in pitch processing but the deficits of amusia also appear to extend beyond pitch processing.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
EditorsSasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain , Paul Warren
Place of PublicationCanberra, Australia
PublisherAustralasian Speech Science and Technology Association
Pages3872-3876
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9780646800691
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2019
EventThe 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences - Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 5 Aug 20199 Aug 2019
https://assta.org/proceedings/ICPhS2019/

Conference

ConferenceThe 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
Abbreviated titleICPhS2019
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period5/08/199/08/19
Internet address

User-Defined Keywords

  • congenital amusia
  • lexical tone perception
  • pitch
  • whispered speech
  • Mandarin Chinese

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