Influences of Segmental Content on the Perception of Word Duration: A First Approach towards a New Perceptual Model of Speech Rhythm

The present research tested the segmental influences on the perception of monosyllabic word durations. 12 listeners of Swiss-German heard pairs of speech and non-speech sounds (monosyllabic words and rectangular-gated sinusoids). They were asked to change the duration of the second sound so that it would match the duration of the first one. Results showed that the Weber Fraction (∆T/T) for tones is normally distributed around 0 (perfect alignment) while the Weber Fraction for different monosyllabic word pairs can vary significantly from this. In particular quantitative vowel length in contrastive position was found to have an effect on the perception of word duration. Possible implications for models of speech rhythm are discussed.