Abstract: Is there laterality in perception of tone of Chinese?To this problem,the conclusion of our past psycho-acoustical experiments were repeatedly negative,just as the case in perception of final or vowel.Recently,however,studies using neuroelectric event-related potential (ERP) paradigm,have showed somewhat different results.It is thus necessary to undertake further resarch oil this problem.
In the present experiment,we used four tones of the syllable"mao",in both natural sound andwhisper as its phonetic materials.ERP recordings were derived from the electrode at sites T₃,T₄ on thescalp over the superior temporal regions of subjects head.11 youny male and female,took part in this 4*2*2 factorial experiment.As a second processing PCA and ANOVA were performed on the 176averaged ERP.
Seven principal components were determined after PCA.They accounted for 89% of the totalvariance and were submitted one by one to a Tone (4)×Voice (2)×Lateral (2) ANOVA.Both mainand interaction effect of all except the third component were not significant,while the thitd one had asignilicallt tone by voice ipteraction.Moreover,the post Hoe comparison showed that the ERP of sometones of natural sound on both left and right side differed significalltly) but no such case were occuredamong ERPs of these tones in whisper
Another PCA ANOVA was taken to the 88 cases of ERP's of natural sound with 3 varibles:L(2),H(2),V(2).Here,H and V was the height and change rate of F₀ respectively.The results of the second analysis.showed that there is a weak right hemisphere adVantage in the ERP of V perception.