The roles of fundamental frequency contours and sentence context in Mandarin Chinese speech intelligibility

Abstract

Flattening the fundamental frequency (F0) contours of Mandarin Chinese sentences reduces their intelligibility in noise but not in quiet. It is unclear, however, how the absence of primary acoustic cue for lexical tones might be compensated with the top-down information of sentence context. In this study, speech intelligibility was evaluated when participants listened to sentences and word lists with or without F0 variations in quiet and noise. The results showed that sentence context partially explained the unchanged intelligibility of monotonous Chinese sentences in quiet and further indicate that F0 variations and sentence context act in concert during speech comprehension.

Development and validation of a new Mandarin tone identification test

“…Chen et al [7] showed that, although tone contours were not important in sentence perception in quiet, their importance increased in noise. Wang et al [10] and Xu et al [11] reported similar findings.…”

Effects of fundamental frequency contour on understanding Mandarin sentences in bimodal hearing simulations

“…2. The findings in this study are consistent with results from previous work (e.g., Chen et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2013). Early work showed that while the F0-contour information was important for Mandarin sentence perception, its perceptual contribution could be compensated by other cues (e.g., context information) in quiet.…”

“…F0 contour carries the most distinctive information for lexical tone identification, and temporal envelope and duration are secondary cues contributing to lexical tone recognition (e.g., Fu et al, 1998). The importance of lexical tone contour for Mandarin sentence perception has been noted in various studies (e.g., Chen et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2013). For normal-hearing (NH) listeners, while lexical tone contours do not influence sentence understanding in quiet, they significantly impact Mandarin sentence intelligibility in noise (e.g., Chen et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2013).…”

Use of semantic context and F contours by older listeners during Mandarin speech recognition in quiet and single-talker interference conditions

“…Speech recognition accuracy was determined by a keyword-correct count where each content word provided a potential key word (Scott et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2013). Percent-correct score was obtained based on the number of correct responses (see Fig.…”

“…Furthermore, the significant interaction between F 0 contours and listening condition revealed that natural F 0 contours provided extra benefit in the interference condition, whereas the absence of interaction effect between semantic context and listening condition showed that semantic context contributed to speech recognition to a similar degree in both the quiet and interfering backgrounds. In a tonal language like Mandarin Chinese, F 0 contours play an important role in speech recognition, especially when speech is presented without contextual information (e.g., isolated syllables) or in adverse listening conditions (e.g., in the presence of N-talker babbles) (Patel et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2015). The significant main effect of F 0 contours and interaction effects between F 0 contours and listening condition/semantic context indicate that older listeners have the ability to use F 0 information to assist speech recognition, especially in the presence of interfering speech or absence of sentential semantic context.…”