The perception of f0 perturbations: preliminary findings and challenges

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A consonant leaves a wake on the pitch of the following vowel, its early f0 riding a few to tens of hertz higher or lower. This consonant-related f0 perturbation (CF0) is one of the seeds of tonogenesis, the birth of tone. CF0 is well studied in production, but far less so in perception: how well can listeners actually hear it, and recover the onset pitch behind it? This talk presents preliminary findings on an online pitch-matching experiment from the ManyTones project. A 40-English-listener pilot points to two main things:

recovery of the onset is real but weak, much smaller than classic laboratory studies (Hombert 1975) would predict;
listeners vary enormously, with musical aptitude tracking who recovers the CF0 cue.

ManyTones: Perception of F0 Perturbation across Many Languages

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Speech Perception | Dr Chenzi Xu

The perception of f0 perturbations: preliminary findings and challenges

ManyTones: Perception of F0 Perturbation across Many Languages