The perception of intonation questions and statements in Cantonese

In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in sentence final position. Cantonese listeners performed intonation identification tasks involving complete sentences, isolated final syllables, and sentences without the final syllable (carriers). Sensitivity (d′ scores) were similar for complete sentences and final syllables but were significantly lower for carriers. Sensitivity was also affected by tone identity. These findings show that the perception of questions and statements relies primarily on the F0 characteristics of the final syllables (local F0 cues). A measure of response bias (c) provided evidence for a general bias toward the perception of statements. Logistic regression analyses showed that utterances were accurately classified as questions or statements by using average F0 and F0 interval. Average F0 of carriers (global F0 cue) was also found to be a reliable secondary cue. These findings suggest that the use of F0 cues for the perception of intonation question in tonal languages is likely to be language-specific. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America.published_or_final_versio

Translating Ultrasound into Clinical Practice for the Assessment of Swallowing and Laryngeal Function: A Speech and Language Pathology-Led Consensus Study

Ultrasound (US) has an emerging evidence base for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function. Accessibility and technological advances support the use of US as a clinical assessment tool; however, there is insufficient evidence to support its translation into clinical practice. This study aimed to establish consensus on the priorities for translation of US into clinical practice for the assessment of swallowing and laryngeal function. Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used as a formal method of consensus development. Clinicians and academics, all members of an international US working group, were invited to participate in the study. Two NGT meetings were held, where participants silently generated and then shared ideas. Participants anonymously ranked items. Rankings were aggregated before participants re-ranked items in order of priority. Discussions regarding rankings were recorded and transcribed to inform analysis. Member-checking with participants informed the final analysis. Participants (n = 15) were speech and language pathologists, physiotherapists and sonographers representing six countries. Fifteen items were identified and prioritised 1–13 (including two equally ranked items). Reliability, validity and normative data emerged as key areas for research while development of training protocols and engagement with stakeholders were considered vital to progressing US into practice. Analysis revealed common themes that might be addressed together in research, in addition to the ranked priority. A measured approach to the translation of US into clinical practice will enable effective implementation of this tool. Priorities may evolve as clinical and professional contexts shift, but this study provides a framework to advance research and clinical practice in this field

Quantitative analysis of intonation patterns produced by Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease: A preliminary study

This preliminary study aimed to apply the command-response model to the analysis of disrupted intonation patterns in speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD). Three Cantonese PD speakers with mild prosodic impairment participated. The speech stimuli were 36 utterances (questions and statements). Productions were analyzed using the model parameters (base frequency, magnitude and onset time of each phrase command, and amplitude and duration of each tone command). The results showed that Cantonese PD speakers marked the question-statement contrast only by adding a question boundary tone command and contrasting the duration of the tone command at the final position, but not by differences in base frequency, as previously reported for non-dysarthric speakers. This study showed promising results for using the command-response model to analyze intonation patterns in Cantonese dysarthric speech. Additional modelling issues for this group of speakers are discussed. Copyright © 2008 ISCA.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Acoustic cues for the perception of intonation in Cantonese

This study aimed at identifying acoustic cues in intonation perception in Cantonese. Carriers and final syllables contrasting in intonation were selected from a previous study in which listeners identified the stimuli as either questions or statements. Acoustic analyses were used to determine the F0, duration and intensity variation of the carriers and the F0 and duration contrasts of the final syllables. Results showed that carriers consistently identified as questions or statements contrasted in F0 patterns but not in duration or intensity variations. Carriers perceived as questions with above-chance-level accuracy had a higher average F0 level than the other stimuli. At the final position of an utterance, differences were found in both F0 contour and level. The final syllables of questions showed a rising F0 contour, regardless of the original tone and a higher F0 level than their counterparts in statements. These findings are discussed in the context of 'biological codes'. Copyright © 2008 ISCA.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Contextual effect on perception of lexical tones in Cantonese

The present study investigated the role of tonal context (extrinsic information) in the perception of Cantonese lexical tones. Target tones at three separate positions (initial, medial and final position) were recorded by two speakers (one male and one female). These sentences were edited and presented in three conditions: original carrier (target within the original context), isolation (target without context) and neutral carrier (target word as appended at the final apposition within a new carrier). Nine female listeners were asked to identify the tones by matching targets with Chinese characters. Perceptual data showed that tones presented within the original carrier were more accurately perceived than targets presented in isolation, showing the importance of extrinsic information in the perception of lexical tones. In the neutral carrier condition, tones of the final position showed perceptual accuracy significantly above targets of the initial and medial positions. The perceptual error patterns suggested that listeners placed more emphasis on the immediate context preceding the target in tone identification. When tones were presented without an extrinsic context, the proportion of errors for each tone differed. Most of the errors involved misidentifying targets as tones of same F0 contour but different level. The results showed that the importance of extrinsic information on the perception of lexical tones was mainly on identification of F0 level while the intrinsic acoustic properties of the tone helped in identifying the F0 contour.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

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