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The Speech Focus Position Effect on Jaw–Finger Coordination in a Pointing Task

Rafael Laboissière
U864 Espace et Action, INSERM, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Bron, France, and Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Munich, Germany

Arturo Galván
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Jean-Luc Schwartz
GIPSA Laboratory, Department of Speech and Cognition, Grenoble, France; CNRS; and Grenoble University

Contact author: Amélie Rochet-Capellan, who is now a postdoctoral fellow with the Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Ave., Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1, Canada. E-mail: amelie{at}motion.psych.mcgill.ca.

Purpose: This article investigates jaw–finger coordination in a task involving pointing to a target while naming it with a 'CVCV (e.g., /'papa/) versus CV'CV (e.g., /pa'pa/) word. According to the authors' working hypothesis, the pointing apex (gesture extremum) would be synchronized with the apex of the jaw-opening gesture corresponding to the stressed syllable.

Method: Jaw and finger motions were recorded using Optotrak (Northern Digital, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada). The effects of stress position on jaw–finger coordination were tested across different target positions (near vs. far) and different consonants in the target word (/t/ vs. /p/). Twenty native Portuguese Brazilian speakers participated in the experiment (all conditions).

Results: Jaw response starts earlier, and finger–target alignment period is longer for CV'CV words than for 'CVCV ones. The apex of the jaw-opening gesture for the stressed syllable appears synchronized with the onset of the finger–target alignment period (corresponding to the pointing apex) for 'CVCV words and with the offset of that period for CV'CV words.

Conclusions: For both stress conditions, the stressed syllable occurs within the finger–target alignment period because of tight finger–jaw coordination. This result is interpreted as evidence for an anchoring of the speech deictic site (part of speech that shows) in the pointing gesture.

KEY WORDS: deixis, pointing, speech–hand coordination, lexical stress

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