Towards a Cross-Linguistic Model of Speech Rhythm Perception

The search for ‘what makes speech sound rhythmic?’ is not a new one. After over a century of research, there is no consensus as to which linguistic features contribute to our perception of speech as rhythmic or to rhythmic differences between languages. The present MA research used a novel application of a sensorimotor synchronization task to examine beat perception in language. Participants listened to looped recordings from their native language English in a single sentence condition and a short repeating paragraphs condition and tapped along to the beat. Participants were more likely to tap to stressed than unstressed syllables, however they tapped considerably less to stressed syllables in the longer passages.

Participants also listened to looped recordings of two short utterances from four unfamiliar prosodically diverse languages, Bengali, European Portuguese, Mandarin, and Norwegian. Syllables with prosodically prominent features within a language (e.g. syllables with both a boundary tone and pitch accent in Bengali, and with both stress and a pitch accent in Portuguese) were significantly more likely to attract a tap compared to less prominent syllables. The accuracy and regularity of the tapping was also examined. The present findings generalise native English speakers tapping patterns beyond their native language. It is likely that beat perception and rhythmic processing in language is greatly influenced by the prosodic system of a person’s native language. However, our findings suggest that even when encountering unfamiliar languages, listeners tune into the prominent features of a language when inducing the feeling of a beat. Listeners can use these features for the prediction of upcoming events suggesting that rhythm perception across languages is a constructive perceptual process.