A Study of Perceptual Revision of Declination

by Michinao Matsui

This study consists of three experiments, which were carried out to investigate how fundamental frequency declination is perceived by speakers of Tokyo dialect. The results are the following; \begin{itemize} \item The perception of pitch accents always obeys the categorical perception strictlly. \item The perceptual boundary of pitch accent falls down to lower frequency by declination. This result suggests the function of perceptual revision of declination. \item The range of this downslide of the perceptual boundary does not aloways equals the magnitude of declination. This result means that the effect of declination do not be normalized on the ``primitive process'' as the general auditory processing. \end{itemize}