1 The Identification of Tone in Chinese Hearing-Impaired and Hearing-Normal Children Jing-Ni Ou Graduate Institute of Linguistics National Taiwan University

2 Spoken word recognition process The cohort model (Marslen-Wilson & Tyler, 1980; Marslen-Wilson & Welsh, 1978) Hearing-impaired listeners (Schum & Collins, 1990)

3 The Mandarin tone Four lexical tones SampleToneDescriptionPitch (Chao, 1968) Pitch (Feng, 1997) ma  ‘ mother ’ 1st Tonehigh-level5544 ma  ‘ hemp ’ 2nd Tonemid-rising35323 ma  ‘ horse ’ 3rd Tonemid-falling-rising ma  ‘ reproach ’ 4th Tonehigh-falling5142

4 The Mandarin tone Tonal coarticulation (e,g., Shen,1990; Xu, 1994, 1997; Peng, 1997) Perseveratory effects Anticipatory effects Cues to tone perception (e.g., Gandour, 1983; Lin & Repp, 1989) F0 height vs. F0 movement Acquisition of tone (e.g., Li & Thompson, 1977; Chen, 1986)

5 Purposes of this study Investigating the identification of tone in hearing-normal and hearing-impaired children through the time course of tone perception in Mandarin Chinese.

6 Research questions: Q1. How much amount of acoustic-phonetic information do the four tones need to be identified? What is the difference between monosyllabic words and disyllabic words? Q2. Given that hearing-impaired children have limited language capacity, what ’ s the influence of lexical support on perceiving disyllabic words? Q3. What is the relative importance of F0 height and F0 movement as cues to tone perception?

7 Design of the study The Gating Paradigm (Grosjean, 1980) Presenting a spoken language stimulus repeatedly and increasing its presentation time at each successive pass

8 Design of the study GroupAdultHearing-normal childHearing-impaired child Mean age204;116;0 Number Adjustments ProcedureWriting down the target word Four-choice pictures Presentation time 50 msec 100 msec Number of speech materials M: 20 D: 12 M: 20 D: 12 M: 8 D: 8

9 Experimental Study I- The Adult Group Subjects 14 Adults Materials: Monosyllabic words: 20 items in total Disyllabic words: 12 items in total Presentation time: 50 msec Procedure: Writing down the word and confidence rate after each gate within each word

10 Experimental Study II- The Child Group 30 Hearing-normal child group (4;11) Materials: Monosyllabic words: 20 items in total Disyllabic words: 12 items in total Presentation time: 50 msec 19 Hearing-impaired child group (6;0) Materials: Monosyllabic words: 8 items in total Disyllabic words: 8 items in total Presentation time: 100 msec Procedure Pointing to a four-choice picture that represents the meaning of the following word after each gate within each word

11 sha  nshu  i shu  shu 

12 Data Analysis Accuracy rate Activation point (Grosjean & Gee, 1987) Correctly guessing the stimulus word regardless of whether he/she changed to an incorrect guess subsequently Isolation point (Grosjean, 1980) Correctly guessing the stimulus word and not changing his/ her guess subsequently Excluding the responses that failed to isolate or recognize the stimulus word in the end Gain: (MT-DT)/ DT Error analysis

13 Result- Accuracy Rate AdultsHearing-Normal ChildrenHearing- Impaired Children

14 Result- Accuracy Rate Monosyllabic wordsDisyllabic words

15 The Time Course of Tone Perception Monosyllabic words Disyllabic words Adults Hearing-Normal Children Hearing- Impaired Children

16 The Amount of Information Hearing Normal Children Hearing Impaired Children Adults Dark area: monosyllabic words Light area: disyllabic words

17 The Amount of Information Monosyllabic wordsDisyllabic words Adult group T1< T4< T3< T2T1< T3, T4 HN child group T1< T4< T3< T2T1< T2, T4< T3 HI child group T1, T4< T2 T4< T3 T1, T2, T4< T3 Monosyllabic words Disyllabic words

18 Gain in the disyllabic word Gain in disyllabic words Adult groupT1, T4, T3< T2 HN child groupT3< T1, T4< T2 HI child groupT3, T4, T1< T2

19 Q2 : (1) lexical support (r = -.216, p >.05) TargetNumber of candidatesRecognition point (Mean gate in three groups) go  ng + j he  i + b hua + m bia  o + g xia  o + h ba + sh ba  i + (y)i lu  + (y)i so  ng + sh ya  n + j cha  ng + b da  + j

20 Q2 : (2) tonal coarticulation cues

21 Tonal combination 1-1 (3)1-2 (7)1-3 (4)1-4 (3) Pitch height (Hz) Starting point nd gate Pitch contourlevelfalling rising-falling Tonal combination 2-1 (1)2-2 (3)2-3 (1)2-4 (2) Pitch height (Hz) Starting point nd gate Pitch contourrisingrising-fallingrisingrising-falling Tonal combination 3-1 (3)3-2 (2)3-3 (2)3-4 (3) Pitch height (Hz) Starting point nd gate Pitch contourfalling-risingfallingfalling-risingfalling-rising-falling Tonal combination 4-1 (0)4-2 (1)4-3 (2)4-4 (1) Pitch height (Hz) Starting point nd gate Pitch contourfalling falling-rising-falling

22 Q3: Error Analysis Major error Target AdultsHN child groupHI child group Tone 1T4 Tone 2T1T1, T3 Tone 3T4 Tone 4T1 Adults T1T2T3T4

23 Q3: Error Analysis T1T2T3 T4 HN child HI child

24 Q3: F0 height vs. F0 movement

25 Conclusion- Q1: amount of information Monosyllabic wordsDisyllabic words T1 & T4 < ½ syllable T2 & T3 > ½ syllable T1, T2, T3, T4 < ½ syllable

26 Tonal coarticulation cues > lexical support HI child group: Different perceptual weights Having problems in handling pitch pattern that changes rapidly over time Conclusion- Q2

27 F0 height vs. F0 movement F0 movement is a more stable cue than F0 height to the tonal distinctions of Mandarin. Conclusion- Q3