Attractor dynamics in speech production: Evidence from list reading

To date, the vast amount of research done on the isochrony of English speech rhythm has not accounted for the emerging organization of rhythmicity. Our observation that speech rhythmicity is naturally occurring and even preferred as a strategy for optimizing the production and perception of a language-related task has been left untested. A set of experiments were devised to simulate list reading, i.e., a finite set of word tokens that a speaker must convey to hearers. Three lists were used that differed in prosodic structure to investigate the effect of stress pattern on isochrony. The results are analyzed as a low-dimensional dynamical system in which stress determines the cycle of an oscillator. The subjects show consistency in their speech rhythm across all list conditions. There is evidence of attractor dynamics in list reading.