"Are There Cognitive Rhythms in Speech?" — a Reply To Beattie (1984)

Abstract

Beattie (1984) has criticized a previous study by Power (1983) which failed to find evidence for cognitive rhythms in a large sample of speech. Beattie's main criticisms were based on the contention that monologue speech and speech produced with an additional cognitive load were highly unnatural and that only speech produced in natural conversations will display such rhythms. In contrast, it is argued that monologue speech and speech produced with an additional task are commonplace in everyday life. It is also pointed out that previous research has not restricted the provenance of cognitive rhythms to natural conversation. In fact, Beattie's focus on the issue of naturalness leads him to ignore or evade a number of crucial questions raised in the earlier paper.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Beattie, G.W. ( 1980). The role of language production in the organisation of behaviour in face-to-face interaction. In B. Butterworth (ed.), Language Production (New York), pp. 70-107.

Beattie, G.W. ( 1984). "Are there cognitive rhythms in speech?" - A reply to Power (1983). Language and Speech, 27, 193-195.

Butterworth, B. ( 1975). Hesitation and semantic planning in speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 4, 75-87.

Butterworth, B. and Beattie, G. ( 1976). Gesture and silence as indicators of planning in speech . Paper presented at the Conference on the Psychology of Language, University of Stirling.

Goldman-Eisler, F. ( 1967). Sequential temporal patterns and cognitive processes in spontaneous speech. Language and Speech, 10, 122-132.

Jaffe, J. , Breskin, S. and Gerstman, L.J. ( 1972). Random generation of apparent speech rhythms. Language and Speech, 15, 68-71.

Power, MJ ( 1981). An experimental investigation of spontaneous speech. D.Phil. thesis, University of Sussex.

Power, MJ ( 1983). Are there cognitive rhythms in speech? Language and Speech, 26, 253-261.