Bruno and Pierre,
thank you so much for your helpful suggestions!
The work on rhythm is more what I am looking for. I found a big
effect of rate on listeners' perception of speech rhythm. I assume
that it may have something to do with listeners not being able to
detect interval variability in speech any more when the intervals
under investigation are shorter (typically the case in so called
'syllable-timed languages' because they posses simpler phonotactic
structures). So I am looking for evidence showing at what rate
interval distinction ability breaks down in rhythmic contexts.
However, all interval durations I am looking at (syllables, c- or
v-intervals) are well below 200 ms in any language I have collected
data on, which, judged by the rhythm findings, would mean that
listeners should not be able to detect durational variability at all
between any of the speech intervals (when judging duration only!)
and that can hardly be true. It probably has to do with the fact
that interval variability in my speech stimuli is much more complex
and do not fulfill the criterion of isochrony in the way they do it
in the Friberg & Sundberg study. I am working on an explanation...
Best wishes & thanks again,
Volker
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Volker Dellwo
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics
University College London
phone: +44 (0)20 7679 5003 (internal: 25003)
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk
www.phonetiklabor.de
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