Native language affects rhythmic grouping of speech

Abstract

Perceptual attunement to one's native language results in language-specific processing of speech sounds. This includes stress cues, instantiated by differences in intensity, pitch, and duration. The present study investigates the effects of linguistic experience on the perception of these cues by studying the Iambic-Trochaic Law (ITL), which states that listeners group sounds trochaically (strong-weak) if the sounds vary in loudness or pitch and iambically (weak-strong) if they vary in duration. Participants were native listeners either of French or German; this comparison was chosen because French adults have been shown to be less sensitive than speakers of German and other languages to word-level stress, which is communicated by variation in cues such as intensity, fundamental frequency (F0), or duration. In experiment 1, participants listened to sequences of co-articulated syllables varying in either intensity or duration. The German participants were more consistent in their grouping than the French for both cues. Experiment 2 was identical to experiment 1 except that intensity variation was replaced by pitch variation. German participants again showed more consistency for both cues, and French participants showed especially inconsistent grouping for the pitch-varied sequences. These experiments show that the perception of linguistic rhythm is strongly influenced by linguistic experience.

Effects of Musicality on the Perception of Rhythmic Structure in Speech

“…Their proposal also receives support from acoustic analyses of speech productions (Nespor et al, 2008) and from certain rhythmic grouping studies (Abboub et al, 2016;Bion et al, 2011). There is, however, also evidence from phonetic studies and grouping studies that the asymmetry in the distribution of rhythmic cues in production (for an overview, see Fletcher, 2010) and perception (particularly for pitch: Bhatara et al, 2013;Kusumoto & Moreton, 1997;Rice, 1992;Woodrow, 1911) is not as consistent as postulated by Hayes (1995) and Nespor et al (2008), suggesting that a more nuanced view of the ITL is needed.…”

“…If rhythm perception in general and rhythmic grouping in particular draw on shared cognitive resources between the domains of music and language, then musical ability may predict some of the variability between individuals' speech rhythm perception. We focused on native listeners of German-a group that has, to this point, been found to show strong grouping preferences consistent with the ITL Bhatara et al, 2013). Recent research suggests that the perceptual effects of the ITL can be modulated by language experience as well as by musical experience.…”

“…Hayes (1985Hayes ( , 1995 proposed the ITL to offer an account for the typological similarities regarding metrical stress. Many studies carried out over the past century have provided evidence for this law Bhatara et al, 2013;Boll-Avetisyan et al, 2016;Bolton, 1894;Hay & Diehl, 2007;Rice, 1992;Woodrow, 1909Woodrow, , 1951. Nespor and colleagues (Langus et al, 2016a;Nespor et al, 2008) extended the ITL to account for typological similarities regarding phrasal stress, where trochaic phrasal stress (triggered by head-complement word order) is marked by pitch, while final (iambic) phrasal stress (triggered by complement-head word order) is marked by lengthening.…”

“…Studies that have investigated an effect of language experience on rhythmic grouping preferences presented cross-linguistic comparisons of two groups of speakers of different native languages or with different amounts of L2 experience. These studies have compared the rhythmic grouping preferences of speakers of languages that differ at the level of phrasal stress (Iversen et al, 2008;Langus et al, 2016b;Molnar et al, 2016;Molnar et al, 2014;Yoshida et al, 2010) or at the level of lexical stress Bhatara et al, 2013;Boll-Avetisyan et al, 2016;Crowhurst, 2016;Crowhurst & Teodocio Olivares, 2014). Iversen et al (2008) investigated potential effects of phrase-level prosodic knowledge on grouping by comparing native listeners of Japanese and English.…”

“…Another group of researchers has focused on French and German listeners to explore the effects of experience with lexical stress in a native language (Bhatara et al, 2013;Bhatara et al, 2016) or in a second language as well as the effects of musical experience Boll-Avetisyan et al, 2016) on rhythmic grouping preferences. As the current study immediately follows up on this work, these studies will be reviewed in somewhat more detail.…”