Fitts’ law in tongue movements of repetitive speech
- Fitts' law, perhaps the most celebrated law of human motor control, expresses a relation between the kinematic property of speed and the non-kinematic, task-specific property of accuracy. We aimed to assess whether speech movements obey this law using a metronome-driven speech elicitation paradigm with a systematic speech rate control. Specifically, using the paradigm of repetitive speech, we recorded via electromagnetic articulometry speech movement data in sequences of the form /CV.../ from 6 adult speakers. These sequences were spoken at 8 distinct rates ranging from extremely slow to extremely fast. Our results demonstrate, first, that the present paradigm of extensive metronome-driven manipulations satisfies the crucial prerequisites for evaluating Fitts' law in a subset of our elicited rates. Second, we uncover for the first time in speech evidence for Fitts' law at the faster rates and specifically beyond a participant-specific critical rate. We find no evidence for Fitts' law at the slowest metronome rates. Finally, we discussFitts' law, perhaps the most celebrated law of human motor control, expresses a relation between the kinematic property of speed and the non-kinematic, task-specific property of accuracy. We aimed to assess whether speech movements obey this law using a metronome-driven speech elicitation paradigm with a systematic speech rate control. Specifically, using the paradigm of repetitive speech, we recorded via electromagnetic articulometry speech movement data in sequences of the form /CV.../ from 6 adult speakers. These sequences were spoken at 8 distinct rates ranging from extremely slow to extremely fast. Our results demonstrate, first, that the present paradigm of extensive metronome-driven manipulations satisfies the crucial prerequisites for evaluating Fitts' law in a subset of our elicited rates. Second, we uncover for the first time in speech evidence for Fitts' law at the faster rates and specifically beyond a participant-specific critical rate. We find no evidence for Fitts' law at the slowest metronome rates. Finally, we discuss implications of these results for models of speech.…
| Author details: | Stephan R. KuberskiORCiDGND, Adamantios I. GafosORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1159/000501644 |
| ISSN: | 0031-8388 |
| ISSN: | 1423-0321 |
| Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31574509 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Phonetica : international journal of phonetic science |
| Publisher: | De Gruyter Mouton |
| Place of publishing: | Berlin |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2021/02/24 |
| Publication year: | 2021 |
| Release date: | 2023/01/06 |
| Volume: | 78 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Number of pages: | 25 |
| First page: | 3 |
| Last Page: | 27 |
| Funding institution: | European Research Council European Research Council (ERC)European Commission [AdG 249440]; Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftGerman Research Foundation (DFG) [317633480, SFB 1287] |
| Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
| DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
| License (German): |  CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |
