La perception des glissandos descendants dans les contours prosodiques (The Perception of Falling Glissandos in Prosodic Contours)

The aim of this study is to determine whether the threshold and pitch of falling glissandos are identical to those calculated for rising ones--and consequently to test the hypothesis that rising glissandos are less well perceived than falling ones. The results show a threshold between 18 and 19 Hz for a duration of 200 ms, with an initial frequency of 139 Hz. The pitch corresponds to the frequency of a point at two thirds of the duration of the vowel. These results confirm those obtained for rising glissandos. The above hypothesis is not verified. In conclusion, a model of hearing is proposed which account for the modes of perception of glissandos.