Effects of age and sex on voice onset time: Evidence from Mandarin voiceless stops

Abstract

Considerable studies have addressed effects of age and sex on voice onset time (VOT) in English. However, few studies have examined these effects on Mandarin stops. This study attempts to examine effects of age and sex on VOT in Mandarin. A total of 85 Mandarin-speaking children, aged 4-18 years old, and 13 adults as reference participated in a production experiment. Productions were elicited by reading target words in carrier phrases. Results showed that children aged 6-7 years old had longer VOTs than older ones for highly aspirated stops, and the same tendency was not observed for unaspirated stops. However, no linear developmental trend was observed for both highly aspirated and unaspirated stops. In addition, females displayed longer VOTs for highly aspirated stops and shorter for unaspirated stops, whereas significant sex differences in VOTs existed from 14 years old to adulthood for highly aspirated stops, and no significant sex differences in VOTs were found for unaspirated stops in each group, indicating that sex differences in VOTs varied with age and aspiration. The findings suggest that physiological changes in and differences between males and females provide account for some, but not all differences in VOTs across age and sex.

The Development of Categorical Perception of Segments and Suprasegments in Mandarin-Speaking Preschoolers

“…In other words, children have similar phonemic inventory of Tone 1, Tone 2, /pa/, and /p h a/. This, in turn, could help account for why previous studies based on adults' perceptual coding showed earlier acquisition of tones and stops than studies using instrumental analysis (e.g., Hua and Dodd, 2000;Ma et al, 2018;Xu Rattanasone et al, 2018;Yang, 2018;Ma and Zhou, 2019). The development of phonological categories is a protracted process.…”

Bayesian data analysis in the phonetic sciences: A tutorial introduction

“…Li (2013), Peng et al (2014), and Ma et al (2017) show that in three different varieties of Mandarin, women tend to produce aspirated stops with longer VOT values relative to men. In motivating her study, Li reviews many previous studies showing that in both North American English and British English, women tend to produce voiceless stops with longer VOT values relative to men.…”

“…The target stop productions were elicited in the same way across the two languages, using a picture-prompted word-repetition task that was developed to elicit word productions from young children (Edwards and Beckman, 2008). Because the VOT measurements were made using the same criteria by the same group of researchers and their research assistants, they are amenable to evaluating the following questions: Does VOT in the long-lag stops (aspirated stops in Mandarin and voiceless stops in English) differ by gender in each language?Li (2013), Peng et al (2014), and Ma et al (2017) show that in three different varieties of Mandarin, women tend to produce aspirated stops with longer VOT values relative to men. In motivating her study, Li reviews many previous studies showing that in both North American English and British English, women tend to produce voiceless stops with longer VOT values relative to men.…”

Effect of Age and Gender on Voice Onset Time: Data from Sinhalese

“…VOT is also influenced by the speakers' age and gender (Ma et al, 2018;Peng et al, 2014;Whiteside et al, 2003;Whiteside & Marshall, 2001;Yu et al, 2015). Past studies on speech development have also focused on VOT as an important temporal feature (Kent, 1976;Whiteside et al, 2003;Whiteside & Marshall, 2001) and have reported that a typically developing children achieve adult-like VOT by eleven years of age, and during adolescence, they continue to refine their motor skills (Lundeborg et al, 2012;Whiteside et al, 2003;Whiteside & Marshall, 2001;Yu et al, 2015).…”