Perceptual Sensitivity to Tonal Alignment in Nuer.
Siri Gjersøe, Bert Remijsen
PMID 37096930WHAT IT FOUND
Nuer speakers distinguished tonal timing differences as small as 19 ms.
This fine-grained sensitivity was highest for short vowels, where timing shifts altered the pitch contour over the vowel more dramatically than in long vowels.
Key findings
01The average time required for listeners to shift from identifying a Low tone to a High-Low tone was 19 ms.
02Sensitivity to tonal timing was greatest for the item with a short vowel, with an uncertainty interval of 13 ms, compared to 17 ms and 25 ms for items with overlong vowels.
03Perception of the tone category depended on how the pitch fall affected the vowel rather than just the start time of the fall in the consonant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study used synthesized speech, which may not fully capture natural variation. The stimuli were limited to three minimal pairs. Two participants were excluded for performing at chance level. The findings apply specifically to Nuer speakers and the Low versus High-Low tone contrast.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Leipzig graduate school IGRA and The Leverhulme Trust. SIL Ethiopia supported the data collection.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that 19 ms is a universal threshold for tonal perception. This sensitivity was specific to Nuer speakers and varied depending on vowel length, with short vowels allowing for finer discrimination than long vowels.