Tempo variation in speech

Hugo Quené

Speech tempo varies considerably, both between and within speakers. This project investigates both types of variation in speech tempo. An important factor in tempo variation is the age of the speaker. Young speakers are reported to speak faster than older speakers. Since most communication takes place within one's peer group, we hypothesize that young speakers can also *listen* to speech at a faster tempo than older speakers can. This hypothesis will be investigated by constructing materials in which age of speaker and tempo are varied independently, and by presenting these materials in an intelligibility study, to listeners of various age groups. The crucial prediction is that intelligibility is highest at the tempo that is appropriate for the listener's age group.

 The second part of the project investigates variation in speech tempo within speakers. This variation serves an important communicative goal, viz. signalling the relative importance of what is said. Important parts in an utterance are spoken slower than less important parts. Research in music perception has shown, however, that young listeners' performance in tempo discrimination is poorer than that of older listeners. Generalising to speech, this would suggest that young listeners are less able to interpret variations in speech tempo for communicative purposes. This prediction will be tested by assessing the communicative use of speech tempo, once more for listeners from various age groups.