Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Linguistics and Languages, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; ARiEAL Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
ARiEAL Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; Vector Institute, MaRS Centre, Toronto, Canada.
Neuropsychologia. 2019 Aug;131:325-332. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.031. Epub 2019 Jun 8.
Current models of spoken word recognition have been predominantly based on studies of Indo-European languages. As a result, less is known about the recognition processes involved in the perception of tonal languages (e.g., Mandarin Chinese), and the role of lexical tone in speech perception. One view is that words in tonal languages are processed phonologically through individual segments, while another view is that they are processed lexically as a whole. Moreover, a recent study claimed to be the first to discover an early phonological processing stage in Mandarin (Huang et al., 2014). There seems to be a lack of investigations concerning tonal languages, as no clear conclusions have been reached about the nature of tonal processes, or a model of spoken word recognition that best incorporates lexical tone. The current study addressed these issues by presenting 18 native Mandarin speakers with aural sentences with medial target words. These either matched or mismatched the preceding visually presented sentences with medial target words (e.g, /jia1/home). Violation conditions involved target words that differed in the following ways: tone violation, where only the tone was different (e.g., /jia4/"price"), onset violation, where only the onset was different (e.g., /xia1/"shrimp"), and syllable violation, where both the tone and the onset were different (e.g., /tang2/"candy"). We did not find evidence for an early phonological processing stage in Mandarin. Instead, our findings indicate that Mandarin syllables are processed incrementally through phonological segments and that tone is strongly associated with lexical access. These results are discussed with respect to modifications for existing models in spoken word recognition to incorporate the processes involved with tonal language recognition.
目前的口语识别模型主要基于印欧语系语言的研究。因此，对于声调语言（如汉语普通话）的感知所涉及的识别过程以及词汇声调在语音感知中的作用知之甚少。一种观点认为，声调语言中的单词通过单独的音段进行语音处理，而另一种观点则认为它们作为一个整体进行词汇处理。此外，最近的一项研究声称首次发现了汉语普通话中的早期语音处理阶段（Huang 等人，2014）。似乎缺乏对声调语言的研究，因为关于声调过程的性质，或者最能整合词汇声调的口语识别模型，还没有得出明确的结论。本研究通过向 18 名母语为普通话的人呈现中间目标词的听觉句子来解决这些问题。这些句子要么与前面视觉呈现的中间目标词句子匹配（例如，/jia1/home），要么不匹配（例如，/jia4/"price"）。违反条件涉及到以下方面的目标词差异：声调违反，只有声调不同（例如，/jia4/"price"），音首违反，只有音首不同（例如，/xia1/"shrimp"），音节违反，音调和音首都不同（例如，/tang2/"candy"）。我们没有发现汉语普通话中存在早期语音处理阶段的证据。相反，我们的发现表明，普通话音节是通过语音段逐步处理的，并且声调与词汇访问紧密相关。这些结果与现有的口语识别模型的修改有关，以纳入与声调语言识别相关的过程。
