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. 2017 May;141(5):3022.
doi: 10.1121/1.4982247.

Relative contributions of acoustic temporal fine structure and envelope cues for lexical tone perception in noise

Beier Qi  1 , Yitao Mao  2 , Jiaxing Liu  1 , Bo Liu  1 , Li Xu  3
Affiliations

Relative contributions of acoustic temporal fine structure and envelope cues for lexical tone perception in noise

Beier Qi et al. J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 May.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that lexical tone perception in quiet relies on the acoustic temporal fine structure (TFS) but not on the envelope (E) cues. The contributions of TFS to speech recognition in noise are under debate. In the present study, Mandarin tone tokens were mixed with speech-shaped noise (SSN) or two-talker babble (TTB) at five signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs; -18 to +6 dB). The TFS and E were then extracted from each of the 30 bands using Hilbert transform. Twenty-five combinations of TFS and E from the sound mixtures of the same tone tokens at various SNRs were created. Twenty normal-hearing, native-Mandarin-speaking listeners participated in the tone-recognition test. Results showed that tone-recognition performance improved as the SNRs in either TFS or E increased. The masking effects on tone perception for the TTB were weaker than those for the SSN. For both types of masker, the perceptual weights of TFS and E in tone perception in noise was nearly equivalent, with E playing a slightly greater role than TFS. Thus, the relative contributions of TFS and E cues to lexical tone perception in noise or in competing-talker maskers differ from those in quiet and those to speech perception of non-tonal languages.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Average tone-recognition scores across the 20 normal-hearing listeners in the SSN conditions. (Left) Tone-recognition scores as a function of SNR in TFS. Each line represents the data for SNR in E. (Middle) Tone-recognition scores as a function of SNR in E. Each line represents the data for SNR in TFS. (Right) Contour plot of the average tone-recognition scores. The abscissa and the ordinate represent SNR in E and in TFS, respectively. Color represents the tone-recognition performance as indicated by the color bar on the right.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Average tone-recognition scores across the 20 normal-hearing listeners in the TTB conditions. Conventions same as Fig. 1.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 3.
Correlation of E and TFS between the original and noise-mixed tone tokens. (Top) Correlation coefficients (r) of E and TFS between the original tone tokens and those mixed with two types of noise. The solid red lines and the dotted blue lines represent correlation coefficients for the E and TFS, respectively. The circle and triangle symbols represent SSN and TTB conditions, respectively. (Middle) Image plot of the mean correlation coefficients between those of E and TFS for the SSN conditions. The color of each element of the image represents the mean of the correlation coefficient of E at a particular SNR and that of TFS at a particular SNR. The white contour lines demarcate regions of similar values of the mean correlation coefficients. (Bottom) Same as the middle panel, but for the TTB conditions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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