Spontaneous Production Rates in Music and Speech

Pfordresher, Peter Q.; Greenspon, Emma B.; Friedman, Amy L.; Palmer, Caroline

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.611867

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Previous studies that quantified many hours and a high variety of music and speech recordings showed distinct peak AM rates: music peaks at 1-2 Hz and speech peaks at 3.5-5.5 Hz (Ding et al, 2017;Poeppel & Assaneo, 2020;Varnet et al, 2017). Consistent with those findings, these rate differences are also observed in spontaneous speech and music production (Pfordresher et al, 2021). Next, temporal regularity of AM could also be important, as music is often metrically organized with an underlying beat, whereas speech is not periodic and is better considered quasi-rhythmic (Kotz et al, 2018;Poeppel & Assaneo, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Chang¹,

Teng²,

Assaneo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Music and speech are complex and distinct auditory signals which are foundational to the human experience. The mechanisms underpinning each domain are widely investigated. However, how little acoustic information is in fact required to distinguish between them remains an open question. Here we test the hypothesis that a sound’s amplitude modulation (AM) rate is a critical acoustic feature. In contrast to paradigms using ecologically valid, complex acoustic signals (that can be challenging to interpret), we use an aggressively reductionist approach: we artificially generate perceptually ambiguous noise-synthesized audio signals with specific AM parameters. Across four experiments (N = 335), excerpts with a lower peak AM frequency (< 2 Hz) and higher temporal regularity tend to be judged as music; the opposite holds for speech. Furthermore, the effect of peak AM frequency is associated with musical judgements, especially among musically sophisticated participants. The data suggest that the auditory system can rely on a low-level acoustic property as basic as AM to distinguish music from speech, a surprising principle that provokes both neurophysiological and evolutionary experiments and speculations.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Chang¹,

Teng²,

Assaneo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This result indicates that auditory perception seems to activate rate-specific temporal processing mechanisms with different sweet spots in the speech and music domain. This is consistent with previous research indicating that speech signals exhibit temporal modulations at faster rates than music signals (Ding et al, 2017) and studies showing faster spontaneous production rates in speech than in music (Pfordresher et al, 2021). Our results are indicative of the speech and music stimuli in a perception task triggering the activation of their respective motor systems, resulting in the observed differences in optimal time scales.…”

Section: Tone and Speech Perception Triggers Two Different Time Scalessupporting

confidence: 93%

Auditory-Motor Synchronization and Perception Suggest Partially Distinct Time Scales in Speech and Music

Barchet¹,

Henry²,

Pelofi³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Speech and music signals show rhythmicity in their temporal structure with slower rhythmic rates in music than in speech. Speech processing has been related to brain rhythms in the auditory and motor cortex at around 4.5 Hz, while music processing has been associated to motor cortex activity at around 2 Hz reflecting the temporal structures in speech and music. In addition, slow motor cortex brain rhythms were suggested to be central for timing in both domains. It thus remains unclear if domain-general or frequency specific mechanisms are driving speech and music processing. Additionally, for speech processing, auditory-motor cortex coupling and perception-production synchronization at 4.5 Hz have been related to enhanced auditory perception in various tasks. However, it is unknown whether this effect generalizes to synchronization and perception in music at distinct optimal rates. Using a behavioral protocol, we investigate whether (1) perception-production synchronization shows distinct optimal rates for speech and music; (2) optimal rates in perception are predicted by synchronization strength at different time scales. A perception task involving speech and music stimuli and a synchronization task using tapping and whispering were conducted at slow (~2 Hz) and fast rates (~4.5 Hz). Results revealed that synchronization was generally better at slow rates. Importantly, for slow but not for fast rates, tapping showed superior performance when compared to whispering, suggesting domain-specific rate preferences. Accordingly, synchronization performance was highly correlated across domains only at fast but not at slow rates. Altogether, perception of speech and music were optimal at different timescales, and predicted by auditory-motor synchronization strength. Our data suggests different optimal time scales for music and speech processing with partially overlapping mechanisms.

show abstract

“…Previous studies that quantified many hours and a wide variety of music and speech recordings showed distinct peak AM rates in the modulation spectrum: music peaks at 1 to 2 Hz and speech peaks at 3.5 to 5.5 Hz [ 19 – 21 ]. Consistent with those findings, these rate differences are also observed in spontaneous speech and music production [ 22 ]. Next, temporal regularity of AM could also be important, as music is often metrically organized with an underlying beat, whereas speech is not periodic and is better considered quasirhythmic [ 20 , 23 ].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 86%

The human auditory system uses amplitude modulation to distinguish music from speech

Chang,

Teng,

Assaneo

et al. 2024

PLoS Biol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Music and speech are complex and distinct auditory signals that are both foundational to the human experience. The mechanisms underpinning each domain are widely investigated. However, what perceptual mechanism transforms a sound into music or speech and how basic acoustic information is required to distinguish between them remain open questions. Here, we hypothesized that a sound’s amplitude modulation (AM), an essential temporal acoustic feature driving the auditory system across processing levels, is critical for distinguishing music and speech. Specifically, in contrast to paradigms using naturalistic acoustic signals (that can be challenging to interpret), we used a noise-probing approach to untangle the auditory mechanism: If AM rate and regularity are critical for perceptually distinguishing music and speech, judging artificially noise-synthesized ambiguous audio signals should align with their AM parameters. Across 4 experiments (N = 335), signals with a higher peak AM frequency tend to be judged as speech, lower as music. Interestingly, this principle is consistently used by all listeners for speech judgments, but only by musically sophisticated listeners for music. In addition, signals with more regular AM are judged as music over speech, and this feature is more critical for music judgment, regardless of musical sophistication. The data suggest that the auditory system can rely on a low-level acoustic property as basic as AM to distinguish music from speech, a simple principle that provokes both neurophysiological and evolutionary experiments and speculations.

show abstract

Spontaneous Production Rates in Music and Speech

Cited by 13 publications

References 55 publications

Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Auditory-Motor Synchronization and Perception Suggest Partially Distinct Time Scales in Speech and Music

The human auditory system uses amplitude modulation to distinguish music from speech

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About