Beyond Categorical Perception: Gradient Lexical Tone Processing Revealed by Visual Analog Scale.
Purpose: While the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) has revealed gradient perception in segmental speech sounds, its application to lexical tones, a critical yet understudied suprasegmental feature, has been absent. This study investigated lexical tone categorization using VAS, directly comparing it with t...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research Vol. 69; no. 7; pp. 2961 - 2979 |
|---|---|
| Autores principales: | , , , , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Jul2026
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=195295659&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 195295659 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10924388 1SM jtl: Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research issn: 10924388 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 vid: 69 iid: 7 pid: 42 pub: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association artinfo: ui: 195295659 10.1044/2026_JSLHR-25-00789 ppf: 2961 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 6.6MB tig: atl: Beyond Categorical Perception: Gradient Lexical Tone Processing Revealed by Visual Analog Scale. aug: au: Cheng, Bing Xiang, Xi Dai, Xiangrong Zou, Yu Zhang, Xiaojuan Zhang, Yang affil: English Department & Shaanxi Key Laboratory of AI-Empowered Language and Culture Research, School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences and Center for Neurobehavioral Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis. su: Dialects Task performance Data analysis T-test (Statistics) Research funding Phonological awareness Visual analog scale Descriptive statistics Speech evaluation Statistics Speech perception Comparative studies Data analysis software Algorithms sug: subj: Dialects Task performance Data analysis T-test (Statistics) Research funding Phonological awareness Visual analog scale Descriptive statistics Speech evaluation Statistics Speech perception Comparative studies Data analysis software Algorithms ab: Purpose: While the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) has revealed gradient perception in segmental speech sounds, its application to lexical tones, a critical yet understudied suprasegmental feature, has been absent. This study investigated lexical tone categorization using VAS, directly comparing it with traditional two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC). Method: Eighty-four native speakers of Mandarin Chinese categorized an 11-step fundamental frequency (F0) continuum from Mandarin Tone 1 to Tone 2 in both tasks. Four-parameter logistic functions yielded slope (categorization sharpness) and response variability. Within-category sensitivity was quantified from VAS responses. Results: Paired Wilcoxon signed-ranks test showed significantly shallower slopes (p < .001, r = .76) and lower variability (p < .001, r = .87) in VAS versus 2AFC. One-sample t tests confirmed that listeners discriminated fine-grained differences within categories, with within-category sensitivity reliably exceeding zero; left: M = 0.043, SD = 0.026, t(83) = 15.13, p < .001; right: M = 0.040, SD = 0.022, t(83) = 17.02, p < .001. Crucially, slope and response variability were weakly correlated in VAS (ρ = .27, p < .05) but strongly negatively correlated in 2AFC (ρ = −.67, p < .001). Moreover, response variability correlated significantly across tasks (ρ = .40, p < .001), while slopes did not. Conclusions: These findings provide the converging evidence that gradient aspects of perception are also observable at the suprasegmental level and illustrate how VAS can serve as a sensitive tool for probing lexical tone categorization. The dissociation between task-dependent gradiency and stable response variability helps reconcile apparent conflicts in the categorical perception literature, suggesting that these conflicts may stem from methodological constraints rather than genuine theoretical disagreements. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|