Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Chang, Andrew; Teng, Xiangbin; Assaneo, M. Florencia; Poeppel, David

doi:10.31234/osf.io/juzrh

Cited by 5 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…While some of our findings were already expected from previous studies mainly focused on English and other Indo-European languages ( 21 , 32 – 34 , 67 ) [see also the “Literature review of hypotheses and potential mechanisms” section in the Supplementary Materials and ( 36 )], our results provide the strongest evidence to date for the existence of “statistically universal” relationships between music and speech across the globe. However, none of these features can be considered an “absolute” universal that always applies to all music/speech.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Ozaki,

Tierney,

Pfordresher

et al. 2024

Sci. Adv.

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Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…66 Music department, Max-Planck institute for empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 67 Max Planck-nYU center for language, Music, and emotion (claMe), new York, nY, USA. 68 txemim Puri Project-Puri language Research, vitalization and teaching/Recording and Preservation of Puri history and culture, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Ozaki,

Tierney,

Pfordresher

et al. 2024

Sci. Adv.

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“…We predict that the most distinguishing features will be those repeatedly reported in past studies, namely pitch height and temporal rate of sound production (Chang et al, 2022;Ding et al, 2017;Hansen et al, 2020;Merrill & Larrouy-Maestri, 2017;Sharma et al, 2021). Why have these features emerged specific to singing?…”

Section: S11 Hypotheses For Speech-song Differencesmentioning

confidence: 84%

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Ozaki¹,

Tierney²,

Pfordresher³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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What, if any, similarities and differences between song and speech are consistent across cultures? Both song and speech are found in all known human societies and are argued to share evolutionary roots and cognitive resources, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song and speech across languages on a global scale. We will compare sets of matched song/speech recordings produced by our 81 coauthors whose 1st/heritage languages span 23 language families. Each recording set consists of singing, recited lyrics, and spoken description, plus an optional instrumental version of the sung melody to allow us to capture a “musi-linguistic continuum” from instrumental music to naturalistic speech. Our literature review and pilot analysis using five audio recording sets (by speakers of Japanese, English, Farsi, Yoruba, and Marathi) led us to make six predictions for confirmatory analysis comparing song vs. spoken descriptions: three consistent differences and three consistent similarities. For differences, we predict that: 1) songs will have higher pitch than speech, 2) songs will be slower than speech, and 3) songs will have more stable pitch than speech. For similarities, we predict that 4) pitch interval size, 5) timbral brightness, and 6) pitch declination will be similar for song and speech. Because our opportunistic language sample (approximately half are Indo-European languages) and unusual design involving coauthors as participants (approximately 1/5 of coauthors had some awareness of our hypotheses when we recorded our singing/speaking) could affect our results, we will include robustness analyses to ensure our conclusions are robust to these biases, should they exist. Other features (e.g., rhythmic isochronicity, loudness) and comparisons involving instrumental melodies and recited lyrics will be investigated through post-hoc exploratory analyses. Our sample size of n=80 people providing sung/spoken recordings already exceeds the required number of recordings (i.e. 60) to achieve 95% power with the alpha level of 0.05 for the hypothesis testing of the selected six features. Our study will provide diverse cross-linguistic empirical evidence regarding the existence of cross-cultural regularities in song and speech, shed light on factors shaping humanity’s two universal vocal communication forms, and provide rich cross-cultural data to generate new hypotheses and inform future analyses of other factors (e.g., functional context, sex, age, musical/linguistic experience) that may shape global musical and linguistic diversity.

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“…We also describe the music-based mechanism as being perceptual/"lower-level" in nature because a very basic acoustic parameter-amplitude modulation (AM)-has been shown to be important for distinguishing music from speech (Chang, Teng, Assaneo & Poeppel, 2022). Chang et al (2022) further found that more musically sophisticated participants were more likely to judge the sounds in a music detection task as being music despite that fact that 50% of the AM stimuli were music, and the remaining 50% were some other sound. Furthermore, musical experience did not significantly influence performance in an analogous speech detection task where 50% of the AM stimuli were speech, and the remaining 50% were some other sound.…”

Section: A Possible Solution: Two Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Evidence for Two Mechanisms to Account for the Speech to Song Illusion, the Verbal Transformation Effect, and the Sound to Music Illusion

Vitevitch

Phillips

Norkey

et al. 2023

Auditory Perception & Cognition

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Introduction:Five studies examined the speech to song illusion, the verbal transformation effect, and the sound to music illusion in order to determine if they were distinct phenomena and to assess if they could be accounted for by a single perceptual/cognitive mechanism. Methods:In Study 1, word lists varying in length from 1 word (as often used to study the verbal transformation effect) to 4 words (as often used to study the speech to song illusion) were presented to participants for 4 minutes to investigate the percepts that were elicited. In Study 2 participants were asked to indicate YES/NO if they experienced the speech to song illusion when listening to word-lists modified by a vocoder. In Studies 3-5 participants were asked to click a button as soon as the shift in percept occurred from speech (or sound) to a music-like percept to assess the time-course of the speech to song (or sound to music) illusion.Results: Study 1 shows that the verbal transformation effect and the speech to song illusion elicit similar percepts. In Study 2 participants indicated that the speech-like stimuli elicited the speech to song illusion more than the noise-like stimuli. In Studies 3-5 similar time-courses were observed for the speech to song illusion and the sound to music illusion.Discussion: Previous, single-mechanism accounts of the speech to song illusion are discussed, but none of them adequately account for all of the results presented here. A new model is proposed that appeals to both a perceptual/"lower-level" mechanism and a cognitive/"higherlevel" mechanism.

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Amplitude modulation perceptually distinguishes music and speech

Cited by 5 publications

References 46 publications

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Evidence for Two Mechanisms to Account for the Speech to Song Illusion, the Verbal Transformation Effect, and the Sound to Music Illusion

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