The role of auditory feedback during phonation: studies of Mandarin tone production

Auditory feedback during speech plays an important role in the control of articulation. The sound of a speaker’s voice is used to calibrate speaking volume and vocal pitch and also influences the precision of articulation. In two experiments, the speech feedback system is studied by exposing subjects to modified auditory feedback regarding their vocal pitch. In previous work, Jones & Munhall (2000) demonstrated that short-term exposure to altered feedback regarding vocal pitch led to aftereffects in pitch production when feedback was returned to normal. The adaptation suggests that a remapping between produced pitch and expected feedback occurred. In the first study, native speakers of Mandarin were exposed to sudden pitch feedback perturbations while producing /ma/ as a high, flat tone. All subjects showed rapid compensation in response to the perturbation. In the second study, Mandarin speakers were asked to say the same tonal stimulus in two experimental conditions. In one condition, auditory feedback regarding their F0 was slowly shifted up one semitone without their awareness. In a contrasting condition, their feedback was slowly shifted down one semitone. Results indicate that subjects compensated for the pitch-shifted feedback and negative aftereffects were observed when feedback was suddenly returned to normal after the short-term exposure to the altered feedback. These results parallel those found for English speakers and suggest that despite having an obligatory underlying phonetic representation, the acoustic-motor representation is malleable. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.