Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm
Modulations of amplitude rise-time are considered fundamental to speech rhythm. However, rise-time is a holistic measure of the waveform shape and, as such, may be influenced by a variety of factors, potentially obscuring relationships between speech rhythm, signal acoustics, and linguistic structur...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1544948/full |
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| author | Chia-Yuan Lin Tamara Rathcke |
| author_facet | Chia-Yuan Lin Tamara Rathcke |
| author_sort | Chia-Yuan Lin |
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| description | Modulations of amplitude rise-time are considered fundamental to speech rhythm. However, rise-time is a holistic measure of the waveform shape and, as such, may be influenced by a variety of factors, potentially obscuring relationships between speech rhythm, signal acoustics, and linguistic structure. To address the factors that can modulate the rise-time of amplitude envelopes in English and the impact that rise-time modulations may have on rhythm perception in natural connected speech, we recorded 52 English sentences produced by a native female speaker and examined the effect of metrical weight, nucleus duration, average intensity, syllable onset complexity and sonority on rise-time duration in these sentences. As expected, amplitude rise-time was reflective of both acoustic-phonetic (nucleus duration and average intensity) and linguistic (onset complexity and metrical weight) factors. In addition, we conducted a sensorimotor synchronization experiment in which 31 native English speakers tapped in time with the beat of the recorded sentences. Analyses of synchronization showed that rise-time played a limited role in explaining rhythmic variability in these data. Taken together, the present findings indicate that rise-time cannot be straightforwardly mapped onto a specific linguistic function or a specific feature of the acoustic speech signal and is, therefore, difficult to interpret meaningfully. These results highlight a complex relationship between rise-time and speech rhythm and raise critical implications for speech rhythm research based on holistic acoustic measures such as rise-time. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a6488f4c0f2440dba01dfc353f28c3c3 |
| institution | Matheson Library |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
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| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj-art-a6488f4c0f2440dba01dfc353f28c3c32025-07-18T08:45:25ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782025-07-011610.3389/fpsyg.2025.15449481544948Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigmChia-Yuan Lin0Tamara Rathcke1Centre for Cognition and Neuroscience, Department of Social and Psychological Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United KingdomDepartment of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, GermanyModulations of amplitude rise-time are considered fundamental to speech rhythm. However, rise-time is a holistic measure of the waveform shape and, as such, may be influenced by a variety of factors, potentially obscuring relationships between speech rhythm, signal acoustics, and linguistic structure. To address the factors that can modulate the rise-time of amplitude envelopes in English and the impact that rise-time modulations may have on rhythm perception in natural connected speech, we recorded 52 English sentences produced by a native female speaker and examined the effect of metrical weight, nucleus duration, average intensity, syllable onset complexity and sonority on rise-time duration in these sentences. As expected, amplitude rise-time was reflective of both acoustic-phonetic (nucleus duration and average intensity) and linguistic (onset complexity and metrical weight) factors. In addition, we conducted a sensorimotor synchronization experiment in which 31 native English speakers tapped in time with the beat of the recorded sentences. Analyses of synchronization showed that rise-time played a limited role in explaining rhythmic variability in these data. Taken together, the present findings indicate that rise-time cannot be straightforwardly mapped onto a specific linguistic function or a specific feature of the acoustic speech signal and is, therefore, difficult to interpret meaningfully. These results highlight a complex relationship between rise-time and speech rhythm and raise critical implications for speech rhythm research based on holistic acoustic measures such as rise-time.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1544948/fullamplitude enveloperise-timesensorimotor synchronizationP-centremaxDspeech rhythm |
| spellingShingle | Chia-Yuan Lin Tamara Rathcke Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm Frontiers in Psychology amplitude envelope rise-time sensorimotor synchronization P-centre maxD speech rhythm |
| title | Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| title_full | Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| title_fullStr | Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| title_full_unstemmed | Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| title_short | Acoustic and linguistic influences on rise-time modulations in natural English speech: evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| title_sort | acoustic and linguistic influences on rise time modulations in natural english speech evidence from a sensorimotor synchronization paradigm |
| topic | amplitude envelope rise-time sensorimotor synchronization P-centre maxD speech rhythm |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1544948/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chiayuanlin acousticandlinguisticinfluencesonrisetimemodulationsinnaturalenglishspeechevidencefromasensorimotorsynchronizationparadigm AT tamararathcke acousticandlinguisticinfluencesonrisetimemodulationsinnaturalenglishspeechevidencefromasensorimotorsynchronizationparadigm |