Browsing by Author "Pihanurmi, Seila"

Goals. The purpose of this study was to examine, whether the dynamicity of pitch has an effect on duration perception in synthetic auditory stimuli and if the effect, if observed, is dependent on first language. Furthermore, it was of interest to see, if mother tongue has an effect to the way static auditory stimuli are perceived. The effect of dynamic pitch on duration perception is a topic little researched and the results obtained are contradictory which is why this thesis is relevant. The duration discrimination abilities of Finnish and Chinese people have not been compared to each other before, so this thesis has some new information to offer about the perception of duration. Method. The research consisted of different kinds of behavioral tests, which measured the ability to discriminate the differences between two auditory stimuli. Two alternative forced choice method was used in all the experiments. In the first experiment the discrimination ability was measured in stimuli which only differed in duration. In the second experiment the stimuli were dynamic and in the third experiment the stimuli only differed in pitch. There were altogether 30 subjects, 15 of which Finnish and 15 Mandarin Chinese speakers. The answers of the subjects were analyzed with logistic linear regression models fit for multiple variables. Results and conclusions. According to the results mother tongue does have an effect to the answers given and the dynamicity of pitch does lengthen the perceived duration. The effect of language background was also apparent in static stimuli although the significance was marginal. It is nevertheless possible to conclude from the results that the perception of duration between Finnish and Mandarin Chinese speakers does differ from each other. The research on the effect of dynamic pitch on duration perception needs to be continued. Further research is especially needed over the conventions of perceiving natural auditory stimuli and the perception of pitch when tied to a linguistic context.