Comparative Study on Chinese Tone Perception: A Report on Falling f0 Contours

The main task of this study is to establish if a separate low-falling tone could be recognized as Tone-3 in Mandarin. Sixty listeners with different language backgrounds take part in the experiment. Their perception of twelve end-fixed falling pitch contours is reported. The results show that Chinese participants do not perceive low-falling tones as Tone-3; however, both Thai and the other foreign listeners do.