声学特征与普通话辅音声母的感知混淆

Acoustic features and perceptual confusions among some Putonghua consonant initials

针对不同信噪比条件下广州话与普通话母语者对普通话辅音声母的感知混淆,在重点探讨辅音声学特征与感知混淆关系的基础上兼论母语背景和信噪比对普通话辅音声母感知结果的影响。使用混淆矩阵方法,要求13名广州话被试和22名普通话被试对经不同信噪比处理的辅元结构语音刺激中的辅音进行辨认。重复测量方差分析的结果表明,两组母语不同的被试对普通话辅音的感知能力有显著差异,且白噪声会降低两组被试的感知能力。共同的感知结果如下:(1)响辅音具有较好的抗噪性;(2)具有突出频谱峰的擦音和频谱较为平坦的擦音之间不容易发生感知混淆;(3)白噪声对过渡音征以及塞音除阻脉冲的掩蔽作用增加了不送气塞音之间的感知混淆以及送气塞音和送气塞擦音与擦音之间感知混淆;(4)后接元音的舌位对辅音感知混淆结果有一定程度的影响。以上结果表明,发音生理层面(或语言学理论层面)发音部位、发音方法和清浊的分类并不能完全预测噪声背景下普通话辅音声母的感知混淆现象,而使用频谱和音长等声学参数可以更好地解释感知混淆的结果,声学特征对辅音感知混淆的作用有时会超越音系的作用。

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptual confusions of Putonghua consonant initials among native Cantonese and Putonghua speakers under different signal-to-noise ratio conditions.The study focuses on the relationship between the acoustic characteristics of consonants and perceptual confusions,while examining the influence of native language background and signal-to-noise ratio on the perception of Putonghua consonant initials.Using a confusion matrix method,13 Cantonese participants and 22 Putonghua participants are required to identify consonants in speech stimuli with different signal-to-noise ratios.The results of repeated measures analysis of variance indicate a significant difference in the ability to perceive Putonghua consonants between the two groups of subjects with different native languages.Additionally,white noise is found to reduce the perception ability in both groups.The common perception results are as follows:(1)Sonorants exhibit better resistance to noise.(2)There are less perceptual confusions between fricatives with prominent spectral peaks and those with flatter spectra.(3)Due to the masking effect on transitional cues and obstruction pulses of stops,white noise can lead to more prominent perceptual confusions among unaspirated stops,as well as among aspirated stops,aspirated affricates,and fricatives.(4)The tongue position of following vowels has a certain degree of influence on the results of consonant perceptual confusions.The above results show that in terms of the physiological(or linguistic theoretical)aspects of pronunciation,categorizations based on place of articulation,manner of articulation,and voicing fall short in explaining the perceptual confusions of Putonghua consonant initials in noisy environments.Rather,spectral features and duration offer more insightful explanations for these confusions.The role of acoustic features in consonant perceptual confusions sometimes surpasses that of phonetics.