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Perceptual clustering of high-pitched vowels in Chinese Yue Opera

cam.depositDate2022-01-13
cam.orpheus.success2022-01-13 - Embargo set during processing via Fast-track
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Y
dc.contributor.authorNolan, F
dc.contributor.authorFriedrichs, D
dc.contributor.orcidNolan, Francis [0000-0002-8302-5726]
dc.date.accessioned2022-01-14T00:31:21Z
dc.date.available2022-01-14T00:31:21Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.date.updated2022-01-13T10:06:53Z
dc.description.abstractNumerous studies on Western Opera singing have shown that listeners’ vowel identification performance decreases with an increasing fundamental frequency (fo). This study explores the intelligibility of high-pitched vowels in Yue Opera, the largest dialectal opera in China. Six long vowels (/i y e a o u/) were recorded by a professional female singer at ten f0s between 220 and 932 Hz, of which 700-ms nuclei with flat f0 contours and resonance trajectories were extracted as stimuli. In a within-subject design, sixteen phonetically trained listeners responded on a free-choice vowel quadrilateral (task 1) and in a two-alternative forced-choice task (task 2) to indicate which vowel was presented. Results show that vowels cluster in the perceptual space into three groups (/i y e/, /u o/, /a/) above 521 Hz and that listeners could identify vowels between but not within groups with high accuracy up to at least 932 Hz. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) of simulated auditory excitation patterns reveals highly differentiable spectral shapes between groups. These findings put into question whether previous results on Western Opera could be generalized to other forms of opera singing. Key Words: Vowel Intelligibility, High-pitched Singing, Chinese Yue Opera
dc.description.sponsorshipThe CHINA Scholarship COUNCIL (CSC) and Cambridge Trust (doctoral scholarship to Yixin Zhang) Forschungskredit of the University of Zurich, Grant No. FK-18-077, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Grants No. P400PG_180693 and P2ZHP1_168375 (research support to Daniel Friedrichs)
dc.identifier.doi10.17863/CAM.80146
dc.identifier.eissn1872-7182
dc.identifier.issn0167-6393
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/332702
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherElsevier BV
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Theoretical And Applied Linguistics
dc.publisher.urlhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2022.01.004
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectVowel intelligibility
dc.subjectHigh-pitched Singing
dc.subjectChinese Yue Opera
dc.titlePerceptual clustering of high-pitched vowels in Chinese Yue Opera
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2022-01-11
prism.publicationDate2022
prism.publicationNameSpeech Communication
pubs.licence-display-nameApollo Repository Deposit Licence Agreement
pubs.licence-identifierapollo-deposit-licence-2-1
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
rioxxterms.versionAM
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1016/j.specom.2022.01.004

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