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Interspeaker Variation in Habitual Speaking Rate: Additional Evidence

Gary Weismer
Waisman Center and Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Wisconsin—Madison

Kamran Iqbal
University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Contact author: Ying-Chiao Tsao, Human Communication Studies/Communicative Disorders, 800 N. State College Boulevard, P.O. Box 6868, California State University—Fullerton, Fullerton, CA 92834-6868. E-mail: ytsao{at}fullerton.edu

PURPOSE: The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that talkers previously classified by Y.-C. Tsao and G. Weismer (1997) as habitually fast versus habitually slow would show differences in the way they manipulated articulation rate across the rate continuum.

METHOD: Thirty talkers previously classified by Tsao and Weismer (1997) as having habitually slow (n = 15; 7 males, 8 females) and habitually fast (n = 15; 8 males, 7 females) articulation rates produced a single sentence at 7 different rates, using a magnitude production paradigm. Hence, the participants were not randomly assigned to conditions.

RESULTS: Quadratic regression functions relating measured to intended articulation rates were all statistically significant, and most important, there were significant differences between the slow and fast groups in the y intercepts of the functions, for both males and females.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a constructive replication of Tsao and Weismer (1997), showing a difference between slow and fast talkers with a new set of speech materials and in a new task. The findings appear to be consistent with a biological basis for intertalker rate differences.

KEY WORDS: interspeaker variation, speaking rate, direct magnitude production, autometric, scaling functions

Abbreviations: 100, = (the reference point) one's habitual rate75, = 25% slower than one's habitual rate50, = twice as slow as one's habitual rate33, = three times slower than one's habitual rate125, = 25% faster than one's habitual rate200, = two times faster than one's habitual rate300, = three times faster than one's habitual rate