Remez R E, Rubin P E
Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, New York 10027-6598.
J Acoust Soc Am. 1993 Oct;94(4):1983-8. doi: 10.1121/1.407501.
A sinusoidal replica of a sentence evokes a clear impression of intonation despite the absence of the primary acoustic correlate of intonation, the fundamental frequency. Our previous studies employed a test of differential similarity to determine that the tone analog of the first formant is a probable acoustic correlate of sinusoidal sentence intonation. Though the typical acoustic and perceptual effects of the fundamental frequency and the first formant differ greatly, our finding was anticipated by reports that harmonics of the fundamental within the dominance region provide the basis for impressions of pitch more generally. The frequency extent of the dominance region roughly matches the range of variability typical of the first formant. Here, we report two additional tests with sinusoidal replicas to identify the relevant physical attributes of the first formant analog that figure in the perception of intonation. These experiments determined (1) that listeners represent sinusoidal intonation as a pattern of relative pitch changes correlated with the frequency of the tonal replica of the first formant, and (2) that sinusoidal sentence intonation is probably a close match to the pitch height of the first formant tone. These findings show that some aspects of auditory pitch perception apply to the perception of intonation; and, that impressions of pitch of a multicomponent nonharmonic signal can be derived from the component within the dominance region.
句子的正弦波复制品能唤起清晰的语调印象，尽管缺少语调的主要声学相关因素——基频。我们之前的研究采用差异相似性测试来确定第一共振峰的音调类似物可能是正弦波句子语调的声学相关因素。尽管基频和第一共振峰的典型声学和感知效应有很大差异，但我们的发现可由以下报告预见：在主导区域内基频的谐波更普遍地为音高印象提供了基础。主导区域的频率范围大致与第一共振峰典型的变化范围相匹配。在此，我们报告了另外两项针对正弦波复制品的测试，以确定在语调感知中起作用的第一共振峰类似物的相关物理属性。这些实验确定了：（1）听众将正弦波语调表示为与第一共振峰的音调复制品频率相关的相对音高变化模式；（2）正弦波句子语调可能与第一共振峰音调的音高高度密切匹配。这些发现表明，听觉音高感知的某些方面适用于语调感知；而且，多成分非谐波信号的音高印象可以从主导区域内的成分中得出。
