Acoustics vs. perception in the study of intonation

This article describes the relationship between acoustics and perception in the study of pitch phenomena observed while applying to Russian a method of stylizing fundamental frequency curves for an experimental study of intonation in spontaneous and prepared speech. In a short introduction the method of perceptual analysis/resynthesis is presented. In subsequent sections it is demonstrated that the acoustic representation of a pitch movement does not always reflect our perception of that movement. Therefore, in a perceptual description of intonation, it is necessary to present acoustic as well as perceptual data. It is discussed how pitch movements can be visualized, maintaining both the acoustic and perceptual information. The phenomenon discussed in this article has been observed in the intonation of various languages. Examples are fragments of Dutch, English, German, Indonesian and Russian