Interactions between Vowels and Nasal Codas in Mandarin Speakers’ Perception of Nasal Finals

Abstract

Previous studies have shown vowels' effect on the perception of nasal codas from the perspectives of acoustics and phonetics with evidence from Mandarin. While few studies investigated the processing interactions between vowels and nasal codas during the perceptual processing of nasal Finals. Using a speeded classification paradigm which requires participants to attend to one dimension selectively and to ignore other dimensions, we aimed to explore the processing interactions between vowels and nasal codas in the process of nasal Finals' perception. Results of the speeded classification experiment showed that there was a mutual and symmetrical pattern of interference effect between vowel and nasal coda dimensions. More specifically, participants were affected by irrelevant variation of the nasal coda dimension when they were attending to the vowel dimension and affected by irrelevant variation of the vowel dimension when they were attending to the nasal coda dimension. The extent of such mutual interference effect was equal. Results were discussed in terms of phonemic differences in acoustic properties and relative discriminability between vowels and nasal codas. The present study may be helpful to second language learners of Mandarin during their course of acquiring nasal Finals.