title: Pronunciation difficulty, temporal regularity, and the speech-to-song illusion.
abstract: The speech-to-song illusion (Deutsch et al., 2011) tracks the perceptual transformation from speech to song across repetitions of a brief spoken utterance. Because it involves no change in the stimulus itself, but a dramatic change in its perceived affiliation to speech or to music, it presents a unique opportunity to comparatively investigate the processing of language and music. In this study, native English-speaking participants were presented with brief spoken utterances that were subsequently repeated ten times. The utterances were drawn either from languages that are relatively difficult for a native English speaker to pronounce, or languages that are relatively easy for a native English speaker to pronounce. Moreover, the repetition could occur at regular or irregular temporal intervals. Participants rated the utterances before and after the repetitions on a 5-point Likert-like scale ranging from "sounds exactly like speech" to "sounds exactly like singing." The difference in ratings before and after was taken as a measure of the strength of the speech-to-song illusion in each case. The speech-to-song illusion occurred regardless of whether the repetitions were spaced at regular temporal intervals or not; however, it occurred more readily if the utterance was spoken in a language difficult for a native English speaker to pronounce. Speech circuitry seemed more liable to capture native and easy-to-pronounce languages, and more reluctant to relinquish them to perceived song across repetitions.
authors: Music Cognition Lab, University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR, USA.
authors: Elizabeth H
authors: EH
authors: Margulis
authors: Music Cognition Lab, University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR, USA.
authors: Rhimmon
authors: R
authors: Simchy-Gross
authors: Music Cognition Lab, University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR, USA.
authors: Justin L
authors: JL
authors: Black
keywords: meter; music and language; music perception; repetition; speech-to-song illusion