A Universal Rhythm Guides How We Speak: Global Analysis Reveals 1.6-Second Units (phys.org) 60
"The truly universal properties of languages are not independent of our physiology and cognition," argues the co-author of a new study. Instead he says their research "strengthens the idea that intonation units are a universal feature of language."
Phys.org explains: Have you ever noticed that a natural conversation flows like a dance — pauses, emphases, and turns arriving just in time? A new study has discovered that this isn't just intuition; there is a biological rhythm embedded in our speech...
According to the study, led by Dr. Maya Inbar, alongside Professors Eitan Grossman and Ayelet N. Landau, human speech across the world pulses to the beat of what are called intonation units, short prosodic phrases that occur at a consistent rate of one every 1.6 seconds. The research analyzed over 650 recordings in 48 languages spanning every continent and 27 language families. Using a novel algorithm, the team was able to automatically identify intonation units in spontaneous speech, revealing that regardless of the language spoken, from English and Russian to endangered languages in remote regions, people naturally break their speech into these rhythmic chunks. "These findings suggest that the way we pace our speech isn't just a cultural artifact, it's deeply rooted in human cognition and biology," says Dr. Inbar.
"We also show that the rhythm of intonation units is unrelated to faster rhythms in speech, such as the rhythm of syllables, and thus likely serves a different cognitive role...." Most intriguingly, the low-frequency rhythm they follow mirrors patterns in brain activity linked to memory, attention, and volitional action, illuminating the profound connection between how we speak and how we think.
The work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Phys.org explains: Have you ever noticed that a natural conversation flows like a dance — pauses, emphases, and turns arriving just in time? A new study has discovered that this isn't just intuition; there is a biological rhythm embedded in our speech...
According to the study, led by Dr. Maya Inbar, alongside Professors Eitan Grossman and Ayelet N. Landau, human speech across the world pulses to the beat of what are called intonation units, short prosodic phrases that occur at a consistent rate of one every 1.6 seconds. The research analyzed over 650 recordings in 48 languages spanning every continent and 27 language families. Using a novel algorithm, the team was able to automatically identify intonation units in spontaneous speech, revealing that regardless of the language spoken, from English and Russian to endangered languages in remote regions, people naturally break their speech into these rhythmic chunks. "These findings suggest that the way we pace our speech isn't just a cultural artifact, it's deeply rooted in human cognition and biology," says Dr. Inbar.
"We also show that the rhythm of intonation units is unrelated to faster rhythms in speech, such as the rhythm of syllables, and thus likely serves a different cognitive role...." Most intriguingly, the low-frequency rhythm they follow mirrors patterns in brain activity linked to memory, attention, and volitional action, illuminating the profound connection between how we speak and how we think.
The work is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Re: What is this faggy shit? (Score:2)
What if their data was overwhelmingly poisoned by AI slop?
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Re: What is this faggy shit? (Score:2)
Why does my own experience with AI tell me you must be hallucinating?
If I tested you, would you actually be able to tell AI "slop" from genuine hu-man slop?
Did you generate your post with AI?
The AC thanks you (Score:2)
For propagating it's vacuous Subject, even though you were apparently trying to change the subject. Or perhaps it was some kind of wannabe joke about AC being more stupid that AI slop?
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Do you think about homosexuals a lot?
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Said the midwife upon your arrival
Chomsky (Score:3)
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The ability of spoken language is clearly innate. Our brains have been structured for it on an evolutionary scale. If a child under about the age of 5 is around people speaking a given language, you cannot actually keep them from learning to understand it, and you have to be positively abusive to keep them from learning to speak it. This has been well established for a long time.
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And yet, I'm right, and you're stupid.
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A child under about the age of 5 will do whatever people around it are doing.
The evolutionary pressure seems to be in mimicry.
While the ability of spoken language is absolutely a function of the architecture of our neural networks, it's not remotely "clear" that it's innate in an evolutionary sense.
Would 2 people raised in isolation by mutes create a spoken language? Almost certainly not.
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Would 2 people raised in isolation by mutes create a spoken language? Almost certainly not.
I am interested in hearing your reasoning for this strong belief.
If we go back several million years there were zero spoken languages. Originally all creatures were effectively mute, in a semiotic sense. And yet in a mere fraction of that time - the past 5,000 years - there have been thousands of spoken languages. How did spoken language get created the first time, since every speaker was surrounded by "mute" predecessors? Whom were they mimicking? Why are you "almost certain" that two organisms who possess
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Don't know about mutes, but there is a famous case study of how a bunch of deaf orphans in a Nicaraguan orphanage spontaneously created sign language. I would guess that if they could hear, but still insulated from external input, thy would have likely developed an auditory language.
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> an innate ability for language
His theory is pretty good descriptively but there's a South American tribe that speaks in a way differently than what his insistence on specific biological structure supports.
The precept that language is innate vs. how language works being innate are probably different claims.
Academic linguists of the Expert Class type get super mad when people bring up that tribe.
IMO it's better to be a scientist than an acclaimed Expert.
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> an innate ability for language
.... there's a South American tribe that speaks in a way differently than what his insistence on specific biological structure supports.
You may be thinking of Piraha [wikipedia.org], a language which seems to lack facilities for embedding and recursion.
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> an innate ability for language
His theory is pretty good descriptively but there's a South American tribe that speaks in a way differently than what his insistence on specific biological structure supports.
You mean the Pirahã. That’s Daniel Everett’s claim from the mid-2000s, not a new discovery. Even then, it wasn’t that Pirahã disproves Universal Grammar — only that it appears to restrict certain recursive constructions. Restriction is not falsification. Languages vary in what they use, not in what the human brain can generate, which is what this paper addresses. You did read it, right? Your four-digit uid suggests you've been around long enough to be as tired of drive-by
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It's Universal Grammar.
An innate ability for language is less contentious than the idea of a Universal Grammar.
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This is super cool, but I wouldn't think it gives Chomsky the win yet about there being an innate ability for language
Agreed — on both points. :) Cool indeed. This paper doesn’t hand Chomsky the trophy. What it does suggest is that his “universals of language” may live in more than one layer of the system. Chomsky gave us a handle on the structure layer, but this paper demonstrates that there is also a temporal (read: prosodic) layer built on the physical substrate of breathing rhythms, neural oscillations, and motor constraints. These impose measurable limits on how fast syllables can be produ
Explains why Spanish sounds so rapid (Score:5, Interesting)
Most common English words are 1-2 syllables. Their Spanish equivalents are often 4-6 syllables. To get out the same amount of meaning, a Spanish speaker has to spit out a lot more syllables than an English speaker, making the language sound very fast-paced. But the amount of meaning expressed isn't any faster. This study seems to explain why.
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Only if you assume a meaning for "intonation unit" that fits your presumption.
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Those who believe that language has a natural pace of intonation have no Indian co-workers.
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Spanish speakers also don't all speak at the same rates. It's commonly noted that Spaniards themselves speak more rapidly than most other Spanish speakers, and that most Mexicans do as well (but not usually as quickly as most Spanish people.) The summary of this study seems to ignore that. ;) (I haven't read the study yet.)
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I don't think the study ignored that, but confirmed it. The study related to the speed of communicating *thoughts* and the pauses between them, estimating that each phrase took 1.6 seconds. That phrase in Spanish might be 20 syllables, while the same phrase in English might be 8.
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The study related to the speed of communicating *thoughts* and the pauses between them, estimating that each phrase took 1.6 seconds.
Your reply shows you ignored the first sentence of my comment. No sentence in that comment was irrelevant to my point. If you like, you can take another stab at it.
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What is wrong with you? You're doing exactly the same thing again that you did when I made a comment earlier.
Please stop doing this. It adds nothing to the discussion and it makes you look very small-minded and petty.
You may be (and probably are) a pretty smart guy but stuff like this doesn't reflect well on you at all.
Again, please stop doing this. It's really in your own interest do do so.
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What is wrong with you? You're doing exactly the same thing again that you did when I made a comment earlier.
Fuck all the way off. Then, once you have fucked all the way off, come back so I can tell you to fuck off again.
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Correct, I ignored the first sentence of your comment, because it wasn't relevant. Of course, different speakers of a language speak at slightly different rates. I don't disagree. But it doesn't change the fact that Spanish speakers have to spit out many more syllables than English speakers, to express the same thought.
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Correct, I ignored the first sentence of your comment, because it wasn't relevant.
Every sentence in my comment was relevant to the point I was making, which escaped you.
it doesn't change the fact that Spanish speakers have to spit out many more syllables than English speakers, to express the same thought.
That is irrelevant to the point I was making, which is that some Spanish speakers are speaking much more rapidly than other Spanish speakers. You responded with an irrelevant comparison of Spanish to English.
The sentence you ignored was "Spanish speakers also don't all speak at the same rates." How can you possibly believe that to be irrelevant when the subject at hand is the speed at which information is conveyed? That's
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Whatever.
I already agreed with you that different speakers speak at different rates. My point, and the study, never suggested otherwise. The study, and I, are talking about averages, which do allow for regional variations. Those variations don't invalidate the point. I didn't think it necessary to specify all the fine print, like that there are variations, because that's kind of obvious.
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I didn't think it necessary to specify all the fine print, like that there are variations, because that's kind of obvious.
I was asking about the differences. Therefore everything you said in response to my comments in this subthread was irrelevant, which is kind of obvious.
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Interesting, I hadn't observed that before, but I'll watch!
How do we explain Shatner? (Score:2, Funny)
Does his biological clock have arrhythmia?
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Re:How do we explain Shatner? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am more interested in whether it's possible to overclock your speech.
I have to read some stuff to people on a regular basis. If it's clearly the umpteenth time they've heard it then I read it quickly. If it seems to be the first time, I go much more slowly. If they're in a hurry then I read it very quickly. I know my diction is still good (and therefore the same amount of information is being conveyed) because I regularly receive compliments on how I am able to read it very rapidly and still be understood. I also invite them ahead of time to let me know if I'm going too fast, and nobody has done so yet.
You can definitely overclock your speech. Watch a drug commercial.
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I regularly receive compliments on how I am able to read
However, I would be very surprised if anyone ever complimented you on your ability to comprehend what you read. So perhaps you should consider slowing down.
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However, I would be very surprised if anyone ever complimented you on your ability to comprehend what you read. So perhaps you should consider slowing down.
Wow, every troll is coming at me today. I should buy a lottery ticket.
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He has clearly. Been. Vindicated.
Etash (Score:2)
Sounds like a simplification (Score:3)
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Cognitive processing tokens? (Score:2)
Sounds like tokens to me. As TFA said, it's not syllables, it's larger units. Makes sense that our brains have a processing "clock cycle". And that would suggest we might process chunks of language in time with that cycle.
Pure, IANA___ speculation.
Comedic timing? (Score:2)
I also wonder if this has any relation to comedic timing, how a certain amount of pause or phrase delivery can enhance or diminish the joke, and when things "hit" the audience.
New unit proposed (Score:2)
Umms.
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Umms.
Human equivalent of BogoMips? Cuz it feels like 2 Umms is about 1.6 seconds
(I wish I could upvote this because this feels so dead on.
Makes sense (Score:2)
This is the time it takes for packets of data to be transmitted and processed in the simulation we live in. It's like TCP, only for humans.
I wonder if this holds for those that go deaf. (Score:2)
Take a deep breath (Score:1)
Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
The co-author of the study you’re referring to is a woman, not a man, Slashdot editors. She, not he. Dr Maya Inbar
Interesting (Score:2)