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Re: sometimes behave so strangely
Dear Diana,
Interestingly, and as Al Bregman predicted, my perception of the phrase
does not change. I do have absolute pitch, and am guessing the change
heard by most is similar to the default heard by myself and others who
share a similar processing quirk. In any case, non-ap members of my lab
enjoyed it very much.
Best,
- Poppy Crum.
--- Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear Valter (and List),
>
>
> I've compared tone language speakers with nontone language speakers,
>
> expecting to find a difference, and strangely (no pun intended) no
> difference emerged. But I'm intending to run very large groups, just
>
> to make sure.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Diana
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 13, 2006, at 12:10 AM, Valter Ciocca wrote:
>
> > Dear Diana, Al and list,
> >
> > ....
> >> You also raise the point that the transformation of the phrase
> >> from speech to song endures - so that when people listen again to
>
> >> the full sentence, I appear to burst into song. This , to my mind,
>
> >> is a particularly puzzling aspect of the effect. People have told
>
> >> me that the effect is still present, unattenuated, even months
> >> later - and this was certainly my experience. As you point out,
> >> perhaps the most important question raised by this demonstration
> >> is why people don't always hear speech as song. After all, the
> >> vowel components of words are harmonic complexes - yet the pitch
>
> >> characteristics of speech are usually suppressed in perception.
> >> ...
> >
> > true, unless you speak a tonal language, in which case you will
> > focus on pitch patterns in order to figure out the meaning of
> > words. In fact, I wonder whether speakers of tonal languages might
>
> > be more resistant to transforming pitch into singing since for them
>
> > focusing on pitch patterns has become part of the speech schema.
> > Valter
> >
> >
> >>
> >> ---------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> Professor Diana Deutsch
> >> Department of Psychology
> >> University of California, San Diego
> >> 9500 Gilman Dr. #0109
> >> La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA
> >>
> >> 858-453-1558 (tel)
> >> 858-453-4763 (fax)
> >>
> >> http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch
> >> http://www.philomel.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Dec 12, 2006, at 10:08 PM, Al Bregman wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear Diana (and List),
> >>>
> >>> Yes indeed! The repetitions do seem to comvert spoken speech to
> >>> singing.
> >>>
> >>> I wonder whether your phenomenon isn't related to that of
> "semantic
> >>> satiation", in which a word that is repeated over and over tends
> to
> >>> lose its meaning and to be perceived as a sequence of sounds.
> The
> >>> meaning is not lost in an all-or-nothing fashion, but tends to
> get
> >>> weaker and weaker. (See
> >>> .http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s99/yamauchi/semantic.htm)
> >>>
> >>> In the case of your demonstration there is a strongly modulated
> F0
> >>> (intonation contour) over the phrase. It may be that when we
> hear
> >>> ordinary speech, which contains pitch modulation (an acoustic
> >>> phenomenon that is present in both music and speech), the speech
> and
> >>> musical schemas are both evoked and compete with one another.
> >>> However, when the cues for speech are dominant (i.e., continuous
> and
> >>> non-repeating modulation of F0, without pausing on particular
> >>> pitches), the musical interpretation is suppressed. But when the
> >>> phrase is repeated many times, a satiation and weakening of the
> >>> speech
> >>> interpretation occurs (as in semantic satiation), thereby
> >>> allowing the
> >>> musical interpretation to become more dominant. Of course it
> >>> doesn't
> >>> become completely dominant, or else we wouldn't hear speech at
> all.
> >>> Rather there is an intermediate form of activation in which we
> hear
> >>> both speech and music (i.e., singing).
> >>>
> >>> In your demonstration, immediately after hearing the phase as
> >>> melodic,
> >>> when we listen to the whole sentence again, we still maintain an
> >>> association between the phrase and the melodic interpretation. I
> >>> wonder how long this aftereffect lasts.
> >>>
> >>> Your demonstration raises the fascinating question of why we
> don't
> >>> ALWAYS hear speech as singing. It may be that persons with
> absolute
> >>> pitch come closer to this than the rest of us do, or at least can
>
> >>> turn
> >>> it on when they want to. A number of years ago, I asked Poppy
> >>> Crum, a
> >>> graduate student of mine who had absolute pitch, whether she
> could
> >>> assign musical note values to my intonation pattern as I said a
> >>> phrase. She replied that this was easy, and gave me a sequence
> of
> >>> note names.
> >>>
> >>> Whatever the explanation of your phenomenon, it is truly
> >>> interesting,
> >>> and raises some challenging questions. I hope you yourself, or
> some
> >>> of our colleagues, will be able to shed light on the phenomenon
> >>> through a series of analytical experiments.
> >>>
> >>> All the best,
> >>>
> >>> Al
> >>>
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
> >>> Psychology Department, McGill University
> >>> 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
> >>> Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1.
> >>> Tel: (514) 484-2592, (514) 398-6103
> >>> Fax: (514) 484-2592
> >>> www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/auditory/Home.html
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 12/12/06, Diana Deutsch <ddeutsch@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>> Dear list,
> >>>>
> >>>> I've had a number of requests for the sound demonstration I
> >>>> presented at
> >>>> the recent ASA meeting in Honolulu, in which the spoken phrase
>
> >>>> 'sometimes
> >>>> behave so strangely' following several repetitions, appears
> >>>> convincingly
> >>>> to be sung rather than spoken - though there is no musical
> >>>> context and no
> >>>> physical transformation of the sound. This demonstration,
> >>>> together with
> >>>> spoken commentary, is on my CD 'Phantom Words and Other
> >>>> Curiosities'
> >>>> (available from Philomel Records - http://www.philomel.com).
> >>>>
> >>>> The sound demonstration is also posted on the website:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://philomel.com/phantom_words/description.html#sometimes
> >>>>
> >>>> and it's described in the booklet accompanying the CD, which is
>
> >>>> posted at:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://philomel.com/phantom_words/booklet/
> >>>>
> >>>> Happy Holidays!
> >>>>
> >>>> Diana Deutsch
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> --
> >
> >
> > --
>
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