Studies in which speech tempo is quantified commonly use either syllable or segment rate as a proxy measure of tempo. Perception studies have shown that syllable rate measurements correlate closely with elicited tempo judgements across languages. Some research suggests that segment rate is an additional, independent predictor of perceived tempo — in other words, that both syllable and syllable matter for tempo perception. However, direct empirical evidence for this is as yet lacking. This paper reports on three experiments that test the hypothesis that when segment rate is varied on a constant syllable rate, listeners estimate utterances with higher segment rates as faster. Our results provide evidence for listeners’ orientation to syllable rate in estimating tempo, and evidence for listeners’ additional orientation to segment rate — that is, to syllable complexity. However, the latter orientation is only observable when stimuli are variable in duration: when presented with stimuli that are identical both in syllable rate and duration, listeners do not appear to hear stimuli with more complex syllables as faster.

中文翻译：

---

分段率在英语听众语音节奏感知中的作用

量化语音节奏的研究通常使用音节或段率作为节奏的代理度量。感知研究表明，音节率测量与跨语言的节奏判断密切相关。一些研究表明，分段率是感知节奏的一个额外的、独立的预测因素——换句话说，音节和音节对节奏感知都很重要。然而，目前还缺乏这方面的直接经验证据。本文报告了三个实验，这些实验检验了这样一个假设：当段率在恒定音节率上变化时，听众估计段率较高的话语会更快。我们的结果为听众在估计节奏时对音节率的取向提供了证据，并为听众对分段率（即音节复杂性）的额外取向提供了证据。然而，后一种方向仅在刺激持续时间可变时才能观察到：当呈现音节速率和持续时间相同的刺激时，听众似乎不会更快地听到具有更复杂音节的刺激。