RHYTHMS STUDY

General Background and Objectives

Each person has their own communication rhythm, a rhythmic pulse manifested not only in the way one speaks (e.g., pitch, loudness, rate, etc.), but also in the way one moves their body (e.g., posture, gesture, head nods, etc). Previous research has shown that subtle variations in speech and bodily kinematics contain rich communicative value. Variability in speech acoustics has been directly related to a number of social functions, reflecting differences in hidden intentional states and ideologies (Babel & Munson, in press). Likewise, even in simple patterns of movement, such as those that have been reduced to changing patterns of dots, outside observers are able to identify a vast array of social characteristics, such as another’s age and sex (Pollick, Kay, Heim, & Stringer, 2005), dimensions of personality (Koppensteiner & Grammer, 2010), and even an intention to deceive (Grammer, Fink, & Renninger, 2002).

The aim of the study is to extend this research by examining how covariation in these channels of information influences others’ subjective perception of a speaker’s communicative abilities. Although the interconnections of these channels have been explored elsewhere to demonstrate how movements co-vary with speech in systematic ways (e.g., head nods regulate linguistic turn-taking and prosodic stress; Hadar, Steiner, Grant, & Rose, 1983; 1984), or directly influence speech perception (Munhall, Jones, Callan, Kuratate, & Vatikiotis-Bateson, 2004), the current project seeks to examine the covariation as they relate to dimensions that characterize successful communication.

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first goal (phase one) is to examine how multiple behavioral channels are expressed and covary with each other during a simple retelling of a short video narrative. These behaviors will consist of acoustic properties of speech and bodily kinematics and will be analyzed in terms of their independent and shared patterns of rhythmicity and temporal structure. The second goal (phase two) is to relate these patterns to the speaker’s likeability and rhetorical skill in communication. By doing so, we hope to gain a better understanding of which behavioral features, or combination of features, characterize successful communication.

It is anticipated that this project will serve as pilot data for the submission of an NIH Grant (R03/R21) in which we will build models of communicative rhythms with both healthy populations and people with Parkinson’s disease—a neurological disorder characterized by speech production and body movement deficits. The resulting models will form the basis of a diagnostic tool to reveal and understand a potential source of breakdown in communication success in people with Parkinson’s disease and, ultimately, identify potential treatment targets for remediation of deficits.

This project is a collaborative effort with Dr. Stephanie Borrie, Assistant Professor, Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University.