老龄化与普通话声调感知

Aging and Mandarin Tone Perception

随着年龄的增长,老年人的外周和中央听觉系统、认知功能均有所衰退,这使其语音感知加工能力与年轻人相比有明显退化。由于频率解析能力下降明显,同时在基本听力和相关认知因素衰退的交互作用下,老年人的声调感知加工出现较多困难。总体而言,目前汉语普通话声调感知中的老龄化效应研究在声调识别、范畴化感知、噪音影响等方面均有所涉及,但要厘清老年人在不同声调感知任务中表现退化的复杂内在机理,还需要利用跨学科的理论及手段进行更深入、广泛的探索。

Both hearing loss and higher-level age-related degradations,such as declines in the central auditory system or cognitive changes,can interfere with speech perception in older adults.As tone processing is closely related to the right-hemisphere’s function for frequency resolution,older adults experience severe difficulties in tone perception due to their functional decline of auditory cortex interwoven with hearing loss and cognitive impairments.In general,Mandarin lexical tone perception in older listeners has received increasing attention from researchers,and a number of studies have obtained important findings on topics such as tone recognition,categorical perception,and listening in noise.It is pointed out that further explorations based on interdisciplinary theories and research methods are essential for deeper insights into the effects of aging on Mandarin tone perception.