On the anatomy of intonation

Cohen, A.; Hart, J. ’t

doi:10.1016/0024-3841(69)90118-1

Cited by 213 publications

(69 citation statements)

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“…Sentences with such a double contrast are unambiguously contrastive (Braun, 2005(Braun, , 2006 , while sentences with only one accent on the sentence-final noun (e.g., ' Marcel discovered a SECRET') may be perceived as ambiguous between a narrow-focus interpretation and a broadfocus interpretation (Bartels & Kingston, 1994;Birch & Clifton, 1995;Ladd, 1983;Welby, 2003). Furthermore, the number and the positions of accented words can be matched in sentences with a double contrast and sentences with a hat pattern, which is the most frequent neutral intonation contour in Dutch (Cohen & 't Hart, 1967;'t Hart, Collier, & Cohen, 1990; see Figure 2a for an illustration). The neutral hat pattern consists of a pitch rise on the first accented word, a slightly declining high plateau, and a fall on the second accented word (see Figure 2b).…”

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The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

Braun

Tagliapietra

2009

Language and Cognitive Processes

135

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Sentences with a contrastive intonation contour are usually produced when the speaker entertains alternatives to the accented words. However, such contrastive sentences are frequently produced without making the alternatives explicit for the listener. In two cross-modal associative priming experiments we tested in Dutch whether such contextual alternatives become available to listeners upon hearing a sentence with a contrastive intonation contour compared with a sentence with a non-contrastive one. The first experiment tested the recognition of contrastive associates (contextual alternatives to the sentence-final primes), the second one the recognition of non-contrastive associates (generic associates which are not alternatives). Results showed that contrastive associates were facilitated when the primes occurred in sentences with a contrastive intonation contour but not in sentences with a non-contrastive intonation. Non-contrastive associates were weakly facilitated independent of intonation. Possibly, contrastive contours trigger an accommodation mechanism by which listeners retrieve the contrast available for the speaker.

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The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

Braun

Tagliapietra

2009

Language and Cognitive Processes

135

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“…These changes have been shown to be powerful cues to accent perception in Dutch speech (Cohen & t'Hart, 1967). Cues to the location of stressed syllables in English have also been investigated: various workers have demonstrated that pitch is a sufficient cue for the perception of stress (Bolinger, 1958;Faure, Hirst, & Chafcouloff, 1980;Fourcin, Rosen, Moore, Douek, Clarke, Dodson, & Bannister, 1979;Fry, 1958;Lieberman, 1960;Morton & Jassem, 1965).…”

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A figural approach to the role of melodic contour in melody recognition

Dyson

Watkins

1984

Perception & Psychophysics

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These experiments looked at specific components of melodic contour, reversals in pitch, and nonreversals, using a short-term recognition memory paradigm. Listeners found it easier to discriminate between same and different melody pairs if changes occurred at contour reversals. This result was independent of rate of presentation, suggesting that the salience of upper and lower reversals is not attributable to a form of perceptual streaming. These results suggest an analogy between auditory and visual contours. If melodic contour is represented as a series of pitches extending over time, then reversals can be interpreted as "comers" and nonreversals &s "slopes." The results are consistent with a global strategy of perceptual analysis whereby comers are more salient because they "define the figure." An alternative explanation is that the melodies are processed in a way that is similar to the processing of the intonation pattern of speech. These contour feature effects were drastically reduced when the second melody was transposed and/or following a familiarization procedure. This last result is attributed to a more detailed perceptual analysis being performed under these conditions, a process that is less influenced by contour. Therefore,while specificcontour features, reversals in pitch, playa part in the recognition of untransposed novel melodies, these features are not prevalent in the recognition of transposed and more familiar sequences.In an attempt to understand melody perception, numerous investigators have drawn upon perceptual . principles derived from other modalities. Analogies have been made with the perception of visual figures, and by comparing similarities and differences between modalities the utility of general principles of perceptual organization has been explored. This paper concentrates on the role of melodic contour in the recognition of tone sequences. Here melodic contour is broken down into components, and this represents a departure from the practice of previous workers, such as Dowling and Fujitani (1971). These authors describe contour as the overall pattern or shape of the melody, and this consists of the series of directions of pitch change (the ups and downs in pitch), disregarding the magnitude of the pitch change. The present investigation is designed to examine the perceptual significance of smaller elements of the overall contour, that is, contour components. These are examined in relation to general ideas concerning the perceptual representation of auditory sequences.A number of previous studies have investigated the role of melodic contour in melody recognition. In these studies, either the contour remained the same This work was supported by a grant from SERe. The authors wish to acknowledge the invaluable technical support provided by the Reading Department of Psychology, in particular that of Dave Martin, The authors' mailing address is: Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AL, England. or the pattern of ups and downs was changed in ...

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“…Moreover, algorithms were developed to extract features (and their parameters) from the human voice. This aided further research towards the mapping of physical features, such as frequency, power, and time, on their psychological counterparts, pitch, loudness, and duration [114].…”

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Affective signal processing (ASP) : unraveling the mystery of emotions

Broek¹

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On the anatomy of intonation

Cited by 213 publications

References 6 publications

The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

A figural approach to the role of melodic contour in melody recognition

Affective signal processing (ASP) : unraveling the mystery of emotions

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