Fine-structure cues carry Mandarin tone perception, not envelope cues

Evidence

The median tone perception performance was 97.2, 86.5, and 62.8 % correct, respectively for the three groups. The performance slightly reduced for the subjects with SNHL, while the ANSD subjects had dramatic decreases in their tone perception performance with a very large individual variability. The right panel of Fig. 1 plots the mean percentages and standard deviations of tone perception responses to the chimeric tone tokens. The subjects with NH relied on FS nearly entirely to perceive lexical tones regardless of E. In comparison with the NH subjects, the subjects with SNHL depended more on E cues to perceive tones, as they had impaired ability to use FS. In contrast to the finding in the NH and SNHL subjects, only 26.5 % of the tone responses were consistent with the FS of the chimeric tone tokens for the ANSD subjects, indicating that the ANSD subjects had more severely impaired ability to use FS in tone perception. On the other hand, the ANSD subjects relied more heavily on E cues in perceiving lexical tones, indicating that the ability of the ANSD subjects to use E cues for lexical tone perception still remained at a reasonable level. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3388

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader physiological/psychoacoustic understanding of how cochlear damage degrades fine-structure coding while envelope coding partially survives. — connects to: Mandarin tone perception accuracy falls from 97 percent to 63 percent in auditory neuropathy; Fine structure dominates lexical tone perception in normal hearing but is lost in ANSD; Temporal envelope suffices for speech while fine structure carries pitch information — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3381 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: What neural mechanism lets envelope coding survive when fine-structure processing fails in ANSD — neural desynchrony at the auditory nerve?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3388

Broader Connections

• Temporal envelope suffices for speech while fine structure carries pitch information #corroborates (0.95) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3381
• Increasing sensorineural hearing loss shifts tone perception from fine structure to envelope cues #contradicts (0.85) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3380
• Shifted complex tones cannot isolate pure temporal fine structure effects in pitch #qualifies (0.75)
• Envelope and temporal fine structure exist at three distinct processing levels #expands (0.72) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 794