The Influence Of Language Experience On Categorical Perception Of Mandarin Tones

Based on previous researches on categorical perception of pitch contours, this study investigates the perception model of Mandarin and Cantonese through identification task and discrimination task, and then with the results we discuss the influence of language experience on categorical perception of Mandarin tones. In all, there are4main conclusions below:1、it presents typical categorical perception models when the two groups of subjects listening to the tonel and tone2. When perceiving the tone2and tone3, at many onset points and end points it also presents typical categorical perception model for both the two groups, and at several knee points it appears categorized tendency.2、In mono-syllable, the stimulus is probably perceived as tone3only when there is a "low-falling" contour but not a "low-level" one.3、There is important influence of the language experience on categorical perception of Mandarin tones.4、The experiment mission largely affects the result of Mandarin tones’perception.