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Dear list,
I'm neither an expert in audiology or music
perception, so my apologies if what I'll say is too obvious or
unsubstantial. Eliot Handelman wrote:
I think part of the solution is to recognize that Diana actually IS
singing, which could explain why the effect is robust.
I think Diana is singing, too. The sometimes
behave so strangely bit sounded like music to me from the very first time,
i.e. before I got to hear the repetitions (I had no idea what the whole thing
was about so I can't say I perceived it that way because I was expecting it to
sound like that). Then I read the list postings.
To my mind, this is more music than speech. To
begin with, the intonation contours in each word are rather flat .The F0 contour
of sometimes behave so strangely looks pretty much like the so-called
stylised "call contour" (Ladd, 1996). From a perceptual point of view, the
pitch variation within each accented syllable is almost negligible. "times",
"have" "strange" and "ly", sound nearly monotonous. There isn't much
variation across successive syllables, either. (e.g. "sometimes" seems
to be said practically on a level tone). Most speech -the one that doesn't sound
so "musical " - tends to show appreciable intra- and intersyllabic and even
intra-segmental pitch variations.
Besides, there is the duration factor. I think that
the relative duration of the syllables also contributes to its sounding like
music -the TÁta-taTÁ-ta-TÁta (if you know what I mean...).
In my humble opinion, the repetition makes the
listener more aware of the music-like features. But the repetition per
se may not be responsible for the sing-song effect. I played around with
the sound file on Praat, varying pitch within and across syllables and altering
the relative durations until it stopped sounding like music. No matter how many
times I replay this new version, it definitely doesn't sound like
singing...
Best regards,
Andrea Perticone
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