The Attractiveness of Average Speech Rhythms: Revisiting the Average Effect From a Crosslinguistic Perspective

This study investigates the attractiveness of average speech rhythms in Dutch and Mandarin Chinese, two typologically different languages. This was tested in a series of perception experiments in either language in which native listeners chose the most attractive one from a pair of acoustically manipulated rhythms. For each language, two experiments were carried out to control for the potential influence of the acoustic manipulation on the average effect. The results confirm the average effect in both languages, and they do not exclude individual variation in the listeners' perception of attractiveness. The outcomes provide a new crosslinguistic perspective and give rise to alternative explanations to the average effect.PMID:38156473 | DOI:10.1177/00238309231217689
Source: Language and Speech - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Source Type: research