TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of tonal native language on voice fundamental frequency responses to pitch feedback perturbations during sustained vocalizations
AU - Liu, Hanjun
AU - Wang, Emily Q.
AU - Chen, Zhaocong
AU - Liu, Peng
AU - Larson, Charles R.
AU - Huang, Dongfeng
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 30970965), Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 9151008901000053), and NIH Grant No. 1R01DC006243. The authors thank Dr. Yi Xu at University of College London for his helpful discussion regarding Mandarin tonal production. Thanks also to Chun Liang Chan at Northwestern University for his programming help.
PY - 2010/12
Y1 - 2010/12
N2 - The purpose of this cross-language study was to examine whether the online control of voice fundamental frequency (F0) during vowel phonation is influenced by language experience. Native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, both tonal languages spoken in China, participated in the experiments. Subjects were asked to vocalize a vowel sound /u/ at their comfortable habitual F 0, during which their voice pitch was unexpectedly shifted (±50, ±100, ±200, or ±500 cents, 200 ms duration) and fed back instantaneously to them over headphones. The results showed that Cantonese speakers produced significantly smaller responses than Mandarin speakers when the stimulus magnitude varied from 200 to 500 cents. Further, response magnitudes decreased along with the increase in stimulus magnitude in Cantonese speakers, which was not observed in Mandarin speakers. These findings suggest that online control of voice F0 during vocalization is sensitive to language experience. Further, systematic modulations of vocal responses across stimulus magnitude were observed in Cantonese speakers but not in Mandarin speakers, which indicates that this highly automatic feedback mechanism is sensitive to the specific tonal system of each language.
AB - The purpose of this cross-language study was to examine whether the online control of voice fundamental frequency (F0) during vowel phonation is influenced by language experience. Native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, both tonal languages spoken in China, participated in the experiments. Subjects were asked to vocalize a vowel sound /u/ at their comfortable habitual F 0, during which their voice pitch was unexpectedly shifted (±50, ±100, ±200, or ±500 cents, 200 ms duration) and fed back instantaneously to them over headphones. The results showed that Cantonese speakers produced significantly smaller responses than Mandarin speakers when the stimulus magnitude varied from 200 to 500 cents. Further, response magnitudes decreased along with the increase in stimulus magnitude in Cantonese speakers, which was not observed in Mandarin speakers. These findings suggest that online control of voice F0 during vocalization is sensitive to language experience. Further, systematic modulations of vocal responses across stimulus magnitude were observed in Cantonese speakers but not in Mandarin speakers, which indicates that this highly automatic feedback mechanism is sensitive to the specific tonal system of each language.
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U2 - 10.1121/1.3500675
DO - 10.1121/1.3500675
M3 - Article
C2 - 21218905
AN - SCOPUS:79952149358
VL - 128
SP - 3739
EP - 3746
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
SN - 0001-4966
IS - 6
ER -