Temporal cycles in speech production

Abstract

The term macroplanning has been used to refer to the construction of semantic-conceptual structures that enable speakers to accomplish communicative goals during spontaneous speech production. One form of evidence provided as support for the existence of macroplanning are temporal cycles in speech uency. The assumption is that speakers alternate between phases of low uency, during which they prepare macroplans, and high uency, during which macroplans are executed in speech. Existing models of macroplanning suggest that temporal cycles therefore re ect a scheduling problem between processes competing for the capacity of shared resources. Time series analyses con rmed the existence of temporal cycles in spontaneous spoken discourse. In addition, evidence that topic shifts generally precede periods of increasing uency in the temporal cycle was thought to be consistent with the assumption that the cycle re ects macroplanning activity. Existing models of macroplanning are reviewed in light of these results, and problems associated with the underlying assumptions of these models are discussed.

Dynamics of communication in emergency management

“…Temporal cycles have been observed in human speech in terms of both the volume of vocal activity in conversation (Warner, 1979(Warner, , 1992a, and the fluency of speech in uninterrupted discourse (Roberts and Kirsner, 2000). While the time scales associated with these speech cycles are one to two orders of magnitude less than that observed in the present study, it is possible that similar principles may govern their production.…”

Hesitation phenomena: a dynamical perspective

“…Furthermore, the existing research did not investigate hesitation phenomena per se (Greene and Cappella 1986;Jaffe et al 1964;Power 1983;Roberts and Kirsner 2000;Warner 1979) or they have not applied statistical analysis to time series data (Henderson et al 1965(Henderson et al , 1966GoldmanEisler 1967;Butterworth 1975). Power (1983) and Schwartz and Jaffe (1968) demonstrated that human judges overestimate the presence of periodic cycles in random sequences of data.…”

“…There was a significant increase in pause duration preceding topic changes. As Roberts and Kirsner (2000) conflated fluency and hesitation measures, it is difficult to interpret what their results really mean (if pause cycles were due to language planning or if they were due to language processing difficulties).…”

“…So far, studies about the dynamics of hesitation phenomena have focused on searching for cycles (Butterworth 1975;Goldman-Eisler 1967;Greene and Cappella 1986;Henderson et al 1965Henderson et al , 1966Jaffe et al 1964;Power 1983;Roberts and Kirsner 2000;Schwartz and Jaffe, 1968;Warner 1979). They have been based on the observation that, in spontaneous speech, intervals with hesitation phenomena seem to alternate with intervals without them.…”

“…Therefore the authors concluded that there were cycles of silent pauses, which were related to macroplanning preparation. Roberts and Kirsner (2000) studied the relationship between cycles of pauses and discourse topics with interrupted time series. The authors defined ''pause'' to include fluent silent pauses, hesitant silent pauses, and filled pauses, and defined ''phonation'' as all other occurrences.…”