Five perception experiments were conducted that investigated how the perceived prominence of F0 maxima in accented syllables in Dutch is affected by the variation of F0 minima that is supposed to relate to variation in global pitch range. The purpose of the first two experiments was to test the predictions of a model in which the reference line is directly given by an interpolation between observable F0 minima. The results showed that the model was inadequate, and confirmed earlier research suggesting that the reference line is calculated in a less direct way. The next three experiments investigated the role of the F0 of the unaccented portions of speech at the beginning ͑''onset''͒ and at the end ͑''offset''͒ of the contour, and show that only the ͑low͒ onset is used to calibrate the reference line. The results also suggest that longer onsets affect the abstract reference more than do shorter onsets.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the perceived relative prominence of two accented syllables within the same utterance. The fundamental frequencies (F0) at the two accent peaks (P1,P2) were varied as well as the rate of F0 declination over the unaccented syllables. Extending earlier work by Terken [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 1768–1776 (1991)] with low-pitched reiterant speech, a real Dutch sentence was employed in both female and male pitch ranges. The results confirm earlier observations that P2 is usually lower than P1 when judged to be equal in prominence, and that this difference increases with P1 height. However, this second effect diminishes as declination rate increases. The results do not fit any simple model of prominence perception based on distance from a reference declination line. [Work carried out at IPO, Eindhoven.]