Temporal Coding of Voice Pitch Contours in Mandarin Tones

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorPeng, Fei
dc.contributor.authorInnes-Brown, Hamish
dc.contributor.authorMcKay, Colette
dc.contributor.authorFallon, James
dc.contributor.authorZhou, Yi
dc.contributor.authorWang, Xing
dc.contributor.authorHu, Ning
dc.contributor.authorHou, Wensheng
dc.date.accessioned2018-07-25T01:36:59Z
dc.date.available2018-07-25T01:36:59Z
dc.date.issued2018-07
dc.description.abstractAccurate perception of time-variant pitch is important for speech recognition, particularly for tonal languages with different lexical tones such as Mandarin, in which different tones convey different semantic information. Previous studies reported that the auditory nerve and cochlear nucleus can encode different pitches through phase-locked neural activities. However, little is known about how the inferior colliculus (IC) encodes the time-variant periodicity pitch of natural speech. In this study, the Mandarin syllable /ba/ pronounced with four lexical tones (flat, rising, falling then rising and falling) were used as stimuli. Local field potentials (LFPs) and single neuron activity were simultaneously recorded from 90 sites within contralateral IC of six urethane-anesthetized and decerebrate guinea pigs in response to the four stimuli. Analysis of the temporal information of LFPs showed that 93% of the LFPs exhibited robust encoding of periodicity pitch. Pitch strength of LFPs derived from the autocorrelogram was significantly (p<0.001) stronger for rising tones than flat and falling tones. Pitch strength are also significantly increased (p<0.05) with the characteristic frequency (CF). On the other hand, only 47% (42 or 90) of single neuron activities were significantly synchronized to the fundamental frequency of the stimulus suggesting that the temporal spiking pattern of single IC neuron could encode the time variant periodicity pitch of speech robustly. The difference between the number of LFPs and single neurons that encode the time-variant F0 voice pitch supports the notion of a transition at the level of IC from direct temporal coding in the spike trains of individual neurons to other form of neural representation.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was supported by the Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC31771069 and 31700856) and the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing in China (cstc2015jcyjB0538). HI-B was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Early-Career Fellowship.The Bionics Institute acknowledges the support it receives from the Victorian Government through its Operational Infrastructure Support Program.en_US
dc.identifier.citationPeng, F., H. Innes-Brown, C. M. McKay, J. Fallon, Y. Zhou, X. Wang, N. Hu, and W. Hou. 2018. Temporal Coding of Voice Pitch Contours in Mandarin Tones. Frontiers in Neural Circuits. 12(55).en_US
dc.identifier.issn1662-5110
dc.identifier.urihttp://repository.bionicsinstitute.org:8080/handle/123456789/309
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherFrontiers in Neural Circuitsen_US
dc.subjectTemporal codingen_US
dc.subjectTime-varianten_US
dc.subjectVoice pitch contoursen_US
dc.subjectNatural speechen_US
dc.subjectInferior colliculusen_US
dc.subjectFundamental frequencyen_US
dc.titleTemporal Coding of Voice Pitch Contours in Mandarin Tonesen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
2018_Peng_Temporal.pdf
Size:
4.24 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
BI publications