This study first replicated Shen and Lin’s [Lang. Speech 34(2), 145–156 (1991)] experiment with improved stimuli to confirm their claim that the F0 turning point was a perceptual cue to Mandarin tones 2 and 3, and further investigated the relative importance between the timing of the turning point and F0 height. The results indicated that, indeed, the distinction between these two tones was cued by the timing of the turning point, and that F0 height had little effect on the labeling.
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Shen et al. (1993) studied this question.