Purpose: We investigated whether rhythm discrimination is mainly driven by the native language of the listener or by the fundamental design of the human auditory system and universal cognitive mechanisms shared by all people irrespective of rhythmic patterns in their native language. Method: In multiple experiments, we asked participants to listen…

This study aimed to investigate the effect of written cues on the second- language (L2) language perception, processing, and word learning, especially when the person's first language (L1) belongs to a different rhythmic type of language than L2. The first objective was to examine whether late bilinguals as L2 learners can benefit more from…

Recent evidence suggests that the musical rhythm of a particular culture may parallel the speech rhythm of that culture's language (Patel, A. D., & Daniele, J. R. (2003). "An empirical comparison of rhythm in language and music." "Cognition, 87," B35-B45). The present experiments aimed to determine whether listeners actually perceive such rhythmic…

The world's languages display important differences in their rhythmic organization; most particularly, different languages seem to privilege different phonological units (mora, syllable, or stress foot) as their basic rhythmic unit. There is now considerable evidence that such differences have important consequences for crucial aspects of language…

Revised version of a paper presented at the 79th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Atlantic City, N.J., April 21-24, 1970; research supported in part by the Science Research Council (U.K.) and by the National Institutes of Health. (RS)

A study examines two major types of vowel systems in languages, centripetal and centrifugal. English is associated with the centripetal system, in which vowel quality and quantity (rhythm) are heavily influenced by stress. In this system, vowels have a strong tendency to move toward the center of the vowel area. Spanish is associated with the…