Periodic Rhythms in Conversational Speech

Abstract

Spectral analysis of the on-off vocal activity patterns from six conversations indicates that spontaneous speech tends to alternate regularly between periods of high and low activity. These regular cycles are approximately 3 minutes and 6 minutes long. These interaction rhythms may be an emergent property of social systems, or they may be due to internal cognitive or physiological rhythms that affect readiness to initiate activity. The 3-and 6-minute cycles are too long to be accounted for in terms of the existing research on cognitive planning cycles of turn-taking. These cycles are an instance of a nonobvious temporal regularity in speech, which coexists with the turn-taking and grammatical regularities that are apparent to naive observers.