抄録
This study divided 30 children aged 5 to 8 into three age groups to conduct tonal perception experiments, exploring the auditory perception characteristics and developmental trends of the Mandarin Chinese tones Yinping (level tone) and Shangsheng (rising tone). The experimental results indicate: 1. Children’s ability to perceive the two tones improves with age. The perceptual pattern of Yinping—Shangsheng transitions from weak category perception to more typical category perception as children grow. By ages 7 to 8, children’s auditory performance is almost equivalent to that of adults, and in some tasks, they even outperform adults. 2. The position of the target word has a significant impact on auditory performance across all age groups. When the target word is presented first, the boundary position for recognition is later, and the perception range for Shangsheng is larger; when the target word is presented last, the situation reverses. This also indicates that the auditory space for the two tones is highly dynamic. 3. The impact of reference tone categories on auditory performance varies among age groups, but when the reference tone is a departing tone, its influence on the results is more pronounced across all age groups. When the reference tone is other tones, there is no significant impact. 4. Children’s auditory performance changes with age from males outperforming females to females outperforming males, though gender does not have a significant effect on overall auditory performance. 5. In the discrimination experiment, the effect of distinguishing stimuli from low to high pitch is better than from high to low pitch. The order of stimulus presentation significantly affects the discrimination performance of 7 to 8-year-old children, but has no significant effect on other age groups.
