Relative perceptual prominence of fundamental frequency peaks in the presence of declination

This study investigated the effect of fundamental frequency (Fa) declination on the relative perceptual prominence of two Fa peaks (PI, P2) within the same 7-syllable utterance. The Fa values of PI and P2 were varied at each of three rates of Fa declination over the unaccented syllables. Extending earlier work by Terken (1991) with low-pitched reiterant speech, a real Dutch sentence was employed here in the female pitch range. Listeners judged which peak was more prominent, or they adjusted P2 to match PI in prominence. As found earlier, P2 was usually lower than PI when judged to be equal in prominence, and this difference tended to increase with PI height, especially when PI was relatively low and/or the declination slope was shallow. However, effects of declination were smaller than expected. Current models of prominence perception will have to be modified to accommodate these results.