Perceived timing is produced timing: a reply to Howell.

Abstract

In his commentary on our paper (Cooper, Whalen, & Fowler, 1986), Peter Howell (1988) attempts to show that the center of gravity of an acoustic signal is sufficient to predict perceived timing of the signal. In our reply, we confine ourselves to four main points: 1. Howell offers a description of acoustic correlates of perceived timing. As such, it need not conflict with our explanatory account that listeners perceive timing as produced. However, Howell does not have the description right. It conflicts with already published data: . 2. Howell declined to apply his formulas to the stImulI of Cooper et al. and to model their data quantitatively. Apparently, he neglected to try it out on his own stimuli and findings too. It makes the wrong predictions. T?e problem is with his geometry, however; centers ofgravIty of his own stimuli and those of Cooper et al. do pattern in the same way as listener judgments. 3. In a replication and extension ofthe work by Tuller and Fowler (1981), we show that the phonetic composition of a syllable, and not its center of gravity, predicts perceived timing when phonetic composition and center of gravity are opposed in a set of stimuli.. . 4. Our account of perceived and produced tmung meets Howell's proposed criteria for adequacy better than does his own. These points, we acknowledge, go beyond our charge to address Howell's specific complaint that Cooper et al. wrongly discount his view on the basis of their findi?gs. We take the longer route for several reasons. First, although we stand behind our conclusions based on Howell's (1984) remarks, he has elaborated his earlier ideas here and they require their own assessment. Second, it is easy enough to ~ontrast certain pr~dictions of his account and ours expenmentally. In our VIew, Howell should have run such a test to ascertain that his account was worth trying to resuscitate before going to press with his complaint. He did not, and so we did it fo~ him. Finally, our view and Howell's differ markedly m respect to their contexts of theoretical and experimental support. We wanted to point that out.