Chapter9b_Sound_Files
Chapter9b_Sound_Files
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Chapter 9
Timing, Structure, Musical Key (The Darwin-Donovan Experiment)
This page contains the sound files of the Darwin-Donovan Experiment discussed in Chapter 9 .
In a series of brilliant experiments, C. I. Darwin and A. Donovan of Sussex University (1979, two papers and demo tape) have shown that in sentences like "He turned up by ten talking of terrorism", subjects tend to hear equal time intervals between the /t/ sounds in the stressed syllables, although they are objectively unequal. However, when they listen to a sequence of mechanical clicks that are acoustically similar, the same time intervals as between the /t/ sounds are perceived, as they should be, as unequal. When, finally, the clicks and the /t/ sounds in the text are carefully synchronized and sounded simultaneously, the intervals between the /t/ sounds are perceived as equal, whereas the intervals between the clicks are perceived as unequal. The tendency for perceptual isochrony works within intonation contours, but not across contour boundaries.
Listen to the sentence "He turned up by ten talking of terrorism".
Listen to the mechanical clicks arranged by listeners to reflect the intervals between the /t/ sounds as they heard them.
Listen to the mechanical clicks that reflect the exact, measured intervals between the /t/ sounds.
Listen to the sentence "He turned up by ten talking of terrorism" and the mechanical clicks carefully synchronized with the /t/ sounds.
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