In speech, vowels and consonants are two the basic sounds that combined result in lexically meaningful items in all languages. In tone languages, changes in pitch, tone differences also make meaningful lexical distinctions in spoken words. Young infants appear to have no trouble perceiving speech sounds and their production of sounds peculiar to their particular language environment proceeds relatively smoothly and rapidly compared with adults’ acquisition of foreign languages. One way of looking at how infants come to acquire speech sounds of their first language is by examining the speech input they receive. The term infant-directed speech (IDS) has been coined to describe the special way adults and even older children speak to infants. IDS is different to adult-directed speech in various acoustic/phonetic modifications, such as exaggerated prosody, increased pitch and vowel hyperarticulation (Burnham, Kitamura, and Vollmer-Conna, 2002; Kuhl et al., 1997). The exaggerated prosody and increased pitch appear to be related to the expression of affect and gaining infants’ attention (Burnham, Kitamura, and Vollmer-Conna, 2002), whereas vowel hyperarticulation appears to be related to infants’ speech development for a number of reasons. Firstly, investigating how adults speak to foreigners, Uther, Knoll, and Burnham (2007) found that vowels are also hyperarticulated in foreigner-directed speech as in IDS, while other acoustic modifications such as exaggerated prosody and increased pitch, related to affective and attentional factors, are not present in foreigner directed speech. Secondly, Liu, Kuhl, and Tsao (2003) found a positive correlation between vowel hyperarticulation and infants’ native speech perception; mothers who hyperarticulated their vowels more had infants who were better able to discriminate native consonant contrasts.\ While vowel hyperarticulation in IDS to 6-month-olds has been investigated in both tone languages such as Mandarin (Liu et al., 2003), and non-tone languages such as Russian, Swedish, American English (Kuhl et al., 1997) and Australian English (Burnham et al, 2002), no parallel studies have been conducted on the possibility of tone hyperarticulation in tone language IDS. If vowel hyperarticulation is related to infants’ language development then tones in tone hyperarticulated. The possibility of tone as well as vowel hyperarticulation in IDS of the tone language Cantonese, and the development of hyperarticulation across the first 12 months of infancy were investigated here using a longitudinal sequential cohort design. Two groups of native Cantonese mothers were recorded speaking to their infants, the first group at 3, 6, and 9 months, and the second at 6, 9, and 12 months. The study had four main aims (1) to investigate whether tone hyperarticulation occurs in IDS in a tone language Cantonese (2) to investigate whether vowel hyperarticulation occurs in IDS in Cantonese (IDS in this languages had not yet been investigated) and if 1 and 2 are the cases (3) to compare tone and vowel hyperarticulation, and (4) to chart the development of tone and vowel hyperarticulation across the infant’s first 12 months. Contrary to previous findings of vowel hyperarticulation in English Russian, Swedish, and Mandarin IDS to 6-month-olds (Burnham et al., 2002; Kuhl et al., 1997); vowel hyperarticulation was not found for Cantonese IDS. More detailed acoustic analysis examining different dimensions of the vowel space suggest that after the infant is 3 months old, mothers’ vowels begin to be hypoarticulated in IDS compared to ADS on dimensions of back versus front, and high versus low. This pattern of results is consistent with vowel perception studies which suggest that infants have already tuned into the native vowel categories by 4 to 6 months (Polka and Werker, 1994). Tone hyperarticulation, on the other hand, was indeed present at 3 months and increased to peak at 6 to 9 months before declining at 12 months. This pattern of tone hyperarticulation across the first year of infancy is consistent with infant language development – in which attenuation of perception of non-native tones had been found between 6 to 9 months (Mattock and Burnham, 2006). Moreover, detailed phonetic analysis revealed that while the level tones are more hyperarticulated than the contour tones, tones with similar onsets and offsets (i.e., the two rising tones) are actually hypoarticulated in IDS at 9 and 12 months, a time when infants have already tuned into native tones. Finally, results from a preliminary native speech discrimination study using the same infants provide some initial indication that mothers who hyperarticulate tones more also had infants who are better able to discriminate native Cantonese consonants. Together these results suggest that in Cantonese IDS vowels are underspecified whereas tones are consistently over-specified particularly at 6 months when infants are tuning into native tones. Moreover, during this initial period of tone acquisition, only level tones are over specified while tones with similar onsets and offsets are underspecified. It seems likely that for Cantonese language environment infants, during the early stages of language acquisition, pitch information specified by level tones is sufficient for initial acquisition of information about the Cantonese tone space and that information about vowels is not so essential at this time. These studies show that there is indeed tone hyperarticulation in IDS in tone languages, and that in order to make sense of the vowel hyperarticulation data in tone languages, it is important to investigate both vowels and tones in tone languages with complex tone systems such as Cantonese, instead of simply applying Anglocentric notions of vowel hypoarticulation. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, MARCS Auditory Laboratories, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.

已有文獻指出幼兒能夠根據他人的意圖、慾望和信念以解釋對方的行為。本硏究的主要目的為探究幼兒能否理解音樂所傳達的情緒以及能否運用情緒來推測對方的行為，並了解這兩種能力之間的關係。在第一項測試中，我們用了Phillip et al.（2002）的注視時間飾演方範式（looking-time paradigm)來測試幼兒能否透過觀察他人的情緒(包括面部表情及說話)來推斷他的行為。在此項測試中，幼兒會觀看兩種情景（一）實驗人員首先會笑著面向物件甲說話，跟著手抱該物件（一致的情況）；（二）實驗人員首先會笑著面向物件甲說話，但接著手抱另一物件（不一致的情況）。因為在不一致的情況下實驗人員的面部表情與她的行為不協調，假若幼兒能夠理解實驗人員的情緒與行為之間的關係，幼兒將會對這種情況比較感到驚訝，因而注視時間會較長。在另一項測試中，我們運用了跨感官比對飾演方範式（intermodal matching paradigm）來探究幼兒能否理解音樂所表達的情緒。我們在播放開心的音樂之後，幼兒同樣地會觀看兩種情景：（一）螢幕中的實驗人員面露笑容地講話（一致的情況）；（二）螢幕中的實驗人員面帶哀傷地說話（不一致的情況）。由於在不一致的情況下音樂傳達的情緒與實驗人員的面部表情不相符，如果幼兒能夠理解音樂中的情緒，他們對這種情況的注視時間將會較長。此外，鑬於幼兒的語言能力與理解他人的行為及想法有著密切的關連，我們亦要求家長填寫《漢語溝通發展量表》來評估幼兒的語言溝通能力。是次硏究對象為三十五名十八個月大幼兒（平均年齡為十八月及四天）。硏究結果顯示，（一）當實驗人員對一件物件面露笑容時，她便會手握該物件；（二）當實驗人員聽到開心的音樂時，她會面露笑容；相反，當她聽到悲傷的音樂時她便會愁眉苦臉。結果亦顯示幼兒在以上兩項測試中的表現並沒有正向的關聯，即與我們的假設不相符。由於我們認為次序效應（order effect）影響了本硏究的結果，因此我們建議在量度幼兒對音樂中的情緒之理解，以及對情緒與行為之間的關係的理解應作出適當的修改。總括而言，是次硏究把動作及視覺經驗延伸至聽覺經驗，以及由理解意向和信念延伸至理解情緒，因此本硏究對了解自身經驗和理解他人行為及想法之間的關係潛在莫大的貢獻。 / Prior studies demonstrated infants’ precocious mentalistic reasoning of attributing others’ behaviours to intentions, desires and beliefs. However, fewer studies looked at infants’ interpretation of behaviours in terms of agents’ emotional expressions. The present study examined the relationship between infants’ perception of emotions in music and their understanding of behaviours as motivated by emotional states. In Task 1, we adapted Phillips et al.’s (2002) looking-time paradigm to assess infants’ use of emotional information to predict agent’s action. Infants were shown an actress with positive emotional-visual regard directed towards one object and subsequently grasping the same object (consistent event) or the other one (inconsistent event). If infants appreciated the connection between actress’ affect and her action, they should show greater novelty response to inconsistent events in which the actress’ expressed emotion contradicted the expected action. In Task 2, an intermodal matching paradigm was used to test whether infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed in music. We exposed infants to happy or sad music and later showed them an actress portraying either happy or sad dynamic facial expressions on a monitor. If they could discern the emotions embedded in the musical excerpts, they should look longer when the actress’ posed emotion is inconsistent with the emotion represented in the music. Parental report of language skills as measured by the Mac-Arthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories was also obtained to partial out the effect of language ability on psychological reasoning. Results from 35 18-month-olds (M = 18 months 4 days) revealed that as a group (a) they recognized that the actress tended to grasp the object with which she had positively regarded previously, and (b) they appreciated that the actress tended to show happy face upon hearing positive music excerpts whereas sad facial expression was displayed when listening to sad music. Contrary to our hypothesis, we failed to find a positive correlation between these two conceptual understanding. We speculate that the result was obscured by order effects, and suggestions have been proposed to ameliorate the measurement of infants’ looking preferences as reflecting their conceptual understanding. Despite the null result, the current study is potentially significant in corroborating the role of first-person experience in social cognition by extending from motor and visual experience to auditory experience on the one hand, as well as from intention and belief attribution to emotion attribution on the other. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Siu, Tik Sze Carrey. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-84). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Introduction --- p.11 / Infants’ Early Psychological Reasoning --- p.11 / Self-experience as a Mechanism underlying Infants’ Psychological Reasoning --- p.14 / Infants’ Attribution of Behaviours to Emotions --- p.17 / Music as a Language of Emotions --- p.23 / The Perception of Emotions in Music among Young Children and Infants --- p.25 / The Hypothesis of the Present Study --- p.29 / Method --- p.32 / Participants --- p.32 / Apparatus and Materials --- p.33 / Chapter Task 1 --- : Ability to predict agent’s action based on expressed emotion --- p.33 / Chapter Task 2 --- : Ability to decode emotions in music --- p.33 / Musical stimuli --- p.33 / Facial expressions --- p.34 / The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories --- p.35 / Procedure --- p.36 / Chapter Task 1 --- : Ability to predict agent’s action based on expressed emotion --- p.36 / Chapter Task 2 --- : Ability to decode emotions in music --- p.38 / Reliability Coding --- p.39 / Results --- p.41 / Chapter Task 1 --- : Ability to Predict Agent’s Action Based upon Expressed Emotion --- p.41 / Familiarization --- p.41 / Test events --- p.41 / Chapter Task 2 --- : Ability to Decode Emotions in Music --- p.42 / 42 / Test events --- p.42 / The Link between Task 1 and Task 2 --- p.43 / Discussion --- p.46 / Limitations and Further Research --- p.53 / Significance and Implications --- p.59 / Conclusion --- p.60 / References --- p.62 / Appendices --- p.85 / Table --- p.85 / Figures --- p.86

Lei, Ka Yan Margaret. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-94). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgments --- p.i / Abstract --- p.iv / 摘要 --- p.vi / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- BACKGROUND --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Infants' perception of speech contrasts --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Discrimination of segmental contrasts --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Discrimination of suprasegmental contrasts --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Cantonese tonal system --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Properties and classification of the Cantonese tones --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Distributional pattern of the Cantonese tones --- p.24 / Chapter 2.3 --- Tone perception in Cantonese-speaking adults and children --- p.27 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Tone perception in Cantonese-speaking adults --- p.27 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Tone perception in Cantonese-speaking children --- p.29 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Discussion --- p.31 / Chapter 2.4 --- Tone acquisition --- p.32 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHODOLOGY --- p.34 / Chapter 3.1 --- Operant conditioning --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2 --- Background of the paradigm --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3 --- Subjects --- p.38 / Chapter 3.4 --- Stimuli used in the experiments --- p.39 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Auditory stimuli --- p.39 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Visual stimuli --- p.41 / Chapter 3.5 --- Experimental site --- p.43 / Chapter 3.6 --- Procedure --- p.46 / Chapter 3.7 --- Technical control of experiment --- p.49 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- RESULTS OF THE STUDY --- p.52 / Chapter 4.1 --- Details of experiment --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2 --- Assessment criteria --- p.55 / Chapter 4.3 --- Results --- p.58 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Discrimination performance of Group I subjects --- p.61 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Discrimination performance of Group II subjects --- p.68 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Discrimination performance of Group III subjects --- p.72 / Chapter 4.4 --- Comparison with previous studies --- p.72 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary --- p.73 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS --- p.74 / Chapter 5.1 --- Strengths of the VRISD paradigm --- p.74 / Chapter 5.2 --- The use of operant conditioning --- p.76 / Chapter 5.3 --- Relative nature of tone --- p.77 / Chapter 5.4 --- Acoustic similarity between the tones --- p.78 / Chapter 5.5 --- Interplay between production and perception --- p.79 / Chapter 5.6 --- Association between tone perception and tone acquisition --- p.81 / Chapter 5.7 --- Tonal versus segmental discrimination --- p.82 / Chapter 5.8 --- Tone perception in connected speech --- p.84 / Chapter 5.9 --- Gender identification --- p.85 / Chapter 5.10 --- Conclusions --- p.86 / Bibliography --- p.88

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 61-68.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2003. / Bibliography: leaves 67-79. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished