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Welmers has suggested one explanation.

Tone languages use for linguistic contrasts speech parameters which also function heavily in nonlinguistic use.

This may both divert the attention of the uninitiate and cause confusion for the more knowledgeable.

The problem is to disentangle the linguistic features of pitch from the co-occurring nonlinguistic features.

Of course, something of the same sort occurs with other sectors of the phonology: consonantal articulations have both a linguistic and an individual component.

But in general the individual variation is a small thing added onto basic linguistic features of greater magnitude.

With tone, individual differences may be greater than the linguistic contrasts which are superimposed on them.

Pitch differences from one speaker to another, or from one emotional state to another, may far exceed the small differences between tones.

However, any such suggestion accounts for only some of the difficulties in hearing tone, or in developing a realistic attitude about tone, but not for the analytic difficulties that occur even when tone is meticulously recorded.