Abstract
The Iambic-Trochaic Law (ITL) accounts for speech rhythm, grouping of sounds as either Iambs—if alternating in duration—or Trochees—if alternating in pitch and/or intensity. The two different rhythms signal word order, one of the basic syntactic properties of language. We investigated the extent to which Iambic and Trochaic phrases could be auditorily and visually recognized, when visual stimuli engage lip reading. Our results show both rhythmic patterns were recognized from both, auditory and visual stimuli, suggesting that speech rhythm has a multimodal representation. We further explored whether participants could match Iambic and Trochaic phrases across the two modalities. We found that participants auditorily familiarized with Trochees, but not with Iambs, were more accurate in recognizing visual targets, while participants visually familiarized with Iambs, but not with Trochees, were more accurate in recognizing auditory targets. The latter results suggest an asymmetric processing of speech rhythm: in auditory domain, the changes in either pitch or intensity are better perceived and represented than changes in duration, while in the visual domain the changes in duration are better processed and represented than changes in pitch, raising important questions about domain general and specialized mechanisms for speech rhythm processing.
Highlights
Spoken language is governed by rhythm and rhythm can be found at almost every single level of speech
Rhythm in spoken language is signaled through the periodic changes in intensity, duration and pitch involving speech units longer than phonemes such as syllables, which help us to identify for instance which syllables are strong in a word or where is the prominence in phonological phrases
These results suggest that adult listeners can discriminate between rhythmically similar (Spanish and Catalan) as well as rhythmically different (English and Spanish) languages by analyzing the facial mimic when they know at least one of the two languages
Summary
Spoken language is governed by rhythm and rhythm can be found at almost every single level of speech. Monolingual and bilingual English- and Spanish-speaking adults have been shown to discriminate between Spanish and English—two languages differing at the basic rhythmic level—only on the basis of the visual cues provided by speaking faces (Ronquest et al, 2010). These results suggest that adult listeners can discriminate between rhythmically similar (Spanish and Catalan) as well as rhythmically different (English and Spanish) languages by analyzing the facial mimic when they know at least one of the two languages. Speech rhythm perceived by different sensorial modalities is relevant to discover segmental and supra-segmental properties of speech
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