The categorical perception of Mandarin Tone 2 and 3 by tonal and non-tonal listeners

Previous studies on categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin tones focused on rising and falling continua. However, the influence of tonal experience on the categorical perception of Mandarin Tone 2 and Tone 3 remains unclear. By applying categorical perception paradigm, this study takes a further step to examine how L1 experience of Thai, Indonesian and Mandarin affect the CP along a Mandarin T2 and T3 continuum. The results showed that the three L1 groups differ significantly in the positions of the identification boundaries and boundary widths. Only Mandarin listeners exhibited categorical boundaries while Thai and Indonesian listeners demonstrated only psychophysical boundaries. However, both the identification and discrimination curves shown by the Thai listeners approximated the native speakers more closely than that of Indonesian counterparts. The results further pointed out that tonal and non-tonal L1 listeners process Mandarin tones differently while listeners’ tonal L1 experience can facilitate the perception of non-native tone.