Phonetic convergence is a type of speech production in which a talker's speech becomes similar to someone else's. Researchers studied whether or not people working together start to sound like each other as they work.
Tifani Biro, professor of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Pennsylvania; Navin Viswanathan, professor of communication sciences and disorders at Penn State; and Joseph C. Researchers are still studying how and why it happens.
The speaker's ability to make distinctions for their audience is an interesting question.
The participants were given a task to complete together. The participants worked together to play a game. Without being able to see each other, one person was given a list of words which were spoken to the other person in order to complete a series of puzzles. Participants in the activity had to use words to maneuver a character through a graphical environment in the game "Minecraft." The activity presented the same words in blocks that were not graphical.
The shift in convergence shows that the speech sounds of one person begin to approach those of the people they are listening to.
Human speech production systems are believed to be the reason for this. People may be able to present themselves as socially desirable by establishing a kinship with one another.
There are influences on the convergence of vowels.
The researchers found that task engagement made a difference. According to the findings, the extent of convergence on certain acoustic features can be influenced by how engaged participants are.
Other factors may affect the convergence of sounds.
It can affect the message if someone says "Hey, the dog is sitting on the bed" One person may be saying that they want another person to remove the dog from the bed. We can learn a lot from listening to a speaker. Sex, race and the role of the talker influence convergence.
The researchers said that a full understanding of how phonetic convergence occurs will involve studying different groups. Most linguistic studies focus on western college students because they are easy to find in universities where this research is often conducted. When people are from different cultures or have a speech-related disability, phonetic convergence may be different.
One thing to focus on is the sound level, but other things happen at the language level, like using words someone may not normally use.
A framework for understanding interactions among how people communicate is laid out in the research. Insights gained from studying two people without communication disorders may not translate to those with communication challenges.
Researchers will need to study people with different background and abilities in order to build theories about how convergence works.
More information: Tifani Biro et al, The influence of task engagement on phonetic convergence, Speech Communication (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.specom.2022.02.002
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