Abstract
It has been well documented that listeners are able to estimate speaking rate when listening to a talker, but almost no work has been done on perception of rate information provided by looking at a talker’s face. In the present study, the method of magnitude estimation was used to collect estimates of the rate at which a talker was speaking. The estimates were collected under four experimental conditions: auditory only, visual only, combined auditory-visual, and inverted visual only. The results showed no difference in the slope of the functions relating perceived rate to physical rate for the auditory only, visual only, and combined auditory-visual presentations. There was, however, a significant difference between the normal visual-only and the inverted-visual presentations. These results indicate that there is visual rate information available on a talker’s face and, more importantly, suggest that there is a correspondence between the auditory and visual modalities for the perception of speaking rate, but only when the visual information is presented in its normal orientation.
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This research was conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation at Northeastern University by the author and was supported in part by NIH Grant NS 14394 to Joanne L. Miller and by NIH BRSG RR 07143 to Northeastern University. The write-up of the research was done while the author was supported by NIH Grant HD 07239 to the University of Washington.
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Green, K.P. The perception of speaking rate using visual information from a talker’s face. Perception & Psychophysics 42, 587–593 (1987). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207990
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207990