Table 2. Acoustic characteristics of the tones in post- versus pre-focus words.
| Tone | Acoustic characteristics | Post-focus | Pre-focus | Paired t-test (two-tailed) |
| Tone 1 (n = 47) | Mean F0 (st) | 91.97 (1.16) | 93.23 (0.81) | t(46) = −5.91, p<0.0001 |
| Duration (s) | 0.11 (0.02) | 0.12 (0.03) | t(46) = −4.52, p<0.0001 | |
| Mean intensity (dB) | 83.91 (1.77) | 83.42 (2.27) | t(46) = 1.52, p = 0.13 | |
| Tone 2 (n = 51) | Mean F0 (st) | 91.25 (1.39) | 91.95 (1.09) | t(50) = −3.77, p = 0.0004 |
| Duration (s) | 0.11 (0.03) | 0.12 (0.04) | t(50) = −4.02, p = 0.0002 | |
| Mean intensity (dB) | 82.97 (2.36) | 83.10 (2.42) | t(50) = −0.35, p = 0.73 | |
| Tone 3 (n = 9) | Mean F0 (st) | 89.90 (0.65) | 89.62 (1.63) | t(8) = 0.70, p = 0.51 |
| Duration (s) | 0.10 (0.02) | 0.10 (0.04) | t(8) = −0.97, p = 0.36 | |
| Mean intensity (dB) | 83.18 (2.42) | 82.74 (3.24) | t(8) = 0.58, p = 0.58 | |
| Tone 4 (n = 55) | Mean F0 (st) | 91.48 (1.06) | 92.66 (0.89) | t(54) = −7.09, p<0.0001 |
| Duration (s) | 0.11 (0.03) | 0.12 (0.04) | t(54) = −3.51, p = 0.0009 | |
| Mean intensity (dB) | 83.01 (1.89) | 82.70 (2.11) | t(54) = 0.99, p = 0.33 |
Data are means (SD). Mean F0 (in semitones, or st) is the average fundamental frequency of the tone; duration (in seconds, or s) is the length of the tone; mean intensity (in decibels, or dB) is the mean-energy intensity of the tone; Tone 1 = High; Tone 2 = Rising; Tone 3 = Low; Tone 4 = Falling.