{"id":24553,"date":"2018-06-15T12:29:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T16:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=24553"},"modified":"2022-03-16T10:56:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:56:56","slug":"brain-trick-repeated-words-as-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/brain-trick-repeated-words-as-song\/","title":{"rendered":"How Our Brain Tricks Us Into Hearing Repeated Words As Song"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spring of 2018 will forever be remembered for the \u201cLaurel\u201d or \u201cYanny\u201d battle. The four-second audio clip had families and friends in disbelief, unable to comprehend how anyone could hear anything different from what they heard. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The great debate, as repetitive as it was, shed light on the misleading nature of audio perception. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ku.edu\/2018\/06\/04\/move-over-laurel-or-yanny-new-study-looks-why-we-perceive-talking-singing-after-hearing\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">new research<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the University of Kansas (KU) takes a deep dive into another form of misleading audio, the speech-to-song illusion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn the speech-to-song illusion a spoken phrase that is repeated many times begins to sound as if it is being sung, even though it is still being spoken,\u201d said <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/psych.ku.edu\/michael-vitevitch\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Michael Vitevitch<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, professor and chair of psychology at KU and lead researcher in the study. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Speech by KU News Service\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F455627340&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Song by KU News Service\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F455627634&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vitevitch and his team of undergraduate and graduate student researchers set out to find out why this illusion happens. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The findings<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team\u2019s goal was to test if node structure theory, a model of language processing, could partly be responsible for our brain&#8217;s ability to hear spoken words as singing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The researchers determined that fatigue in the brain\u2019s word detectors was the primary reason behind the speech-to-song illusion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn node structure theory, there are detectors for words and detectors for syllables,\u201d said Vitevitch. \u201cThe word detectors fatigue more quickly than the syllable detectors, sort of like sprinting muscles versus endurance muscles in your body.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe first few presentations of the spoken phrase are registered by the word detector as spoken words, but after a few more repetitions the word detectors tire out and don\u2019t respond, so you lose the perception of the sounds as speech,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe phrase is still being presented so the syllable detectors start to register that input. Syllables carry the rhythmic information of language, so since they are responding now your perception of the input shifts to something that is more rhythmic, music-like or song-like.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The study<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The team conducted six experiments to test their explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They singled out phrases with many similar sounding words. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe tried to take out words altogether by using Spanish words with non-Spanish speakers,\u201d Vitevitch said in a statement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe tried focusing on the syllables and number of syllables,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe looked at different characteristics, like is it the word that matters or the number of syllables?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The researchers also created random lists of words, so that everyday speech couldn\u2019t influence whether the subjects perceived something as music. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They tried everything they could to strip musicality from the phrases. They wanted to randomize the words so a phrase wouldn\u2019t sound like a song the first time a subject heard it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen people hear it once, they said it didn\u2019t sound musical at all,\u201d Vitevitch said in a statement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe fact that we could get people to shift perception to something musical after several repetitions gives us confidence that we\u2019re on the right track with the mechanism explaining the effect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Motivation for the study<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musicians, such as Steve Reich, have been using the speech-to-song illusion ever since the 1960s, but scientists didn\u2019t start investigating it until the 1990s. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Steve Reich - It&#039;s Gonna Rain\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vugqRAX7xQE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, none of the scientists were ever able to give a reason to why we can hear repeated spoken word as song, until now. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSome time ago I was reading through the table of contents of a recent journal and there was an article on the speech-to-song illusion which caught my attention because it was an auditory illusion, and one that was language-related, which is my main area of research,\u201d said Vitevitch. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He continued to read articles and papers that demonstrated lots of interesting findings about the illusion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some explained that the illusion occurs in other languages, not just English. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other studies, brain scans showed activity in the language areas when subjects heard speech, and activity was present in the music area when songs were perceived. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBut none of them gave an explanation about why the illusion happened in the first place,\u201d said Vitevitch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMost of the previous studies were by music researchers, so as a language researcher I wondered if a model of language processing might be able to explain how the illusion occurred,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat led to the studies in this paper which tested various parts of a language model to see if it was a viable explanation of the illusion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To most people, visual and auditory illusions, such as the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/a\/a8\/The_Dress_%2528viral_phenomenon%2529.png\/220px-The_Dress_%2528viral_phenomenon%2529.png&amp;imgrefurl=https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_dress&amp;h=293&amp;w=220&amp;tbnid=R4STDf0Cbn1G9M:&amp;q=the+dress+illusion+original&amp;tbnh=186&amp;tbnw=139&amp;usg=__JncEAI3a1rpaxT3ZYdjiFQso4Fk%3D&amp;vet=10ahUKEwiPrOKC2tPbAhVL0VMKHdKODxEQ_B0IhQIwGw..i&amp;docid=NOlYdjfNx2KdMM&amp;itg=1&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiPrOKC2tPbAhVL0VMKHdKODxEQ_B0IhQIwGw\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">what color is the dress<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d debate in 2015 and the Laurel and Yanny battle, are just for fun. But, Vitevitch sees the illusions as great opportunities to further the understanding of music and speech perception. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAll scientists are trying to look inside of a black box to understand what\u2019s going on inside,\u201d Vitevitch said in a statement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe\u2019re all trying to understand the universe or the brain or how atoms work. So, any opportunity to get a crack in the black box where you can look inside, you need to take. Things like illusions are often dismissed, but they\u2019re unique opportunities to get another angle on what\u2019s going on. Yes, they\u2019re kind of fun and interesting and goofy and they get attention \u2014 but really they\u2019re another opportunity to see what\u2019s going on inside the black box.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring of 2018 will forever be remembered for the \u201cLaurel\u201d or \u201cYanny\u201d battle. The four-second audio clip had families and friends in disbelief, unable to comprehend how anyone could hear anything different from what they heard. The great debate, as repetitive as it was, shed light on the misleading nature of audio perception. Now new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":24542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[619,230,229,509,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mind","category-news","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-kansas","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave-224x144.png",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave-300x193.png",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jackson Schroeder","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/jackson-schroeder\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Spring of 2018 will forever be remembered for the \u201cLaurel\u201d or \u201cYanny\u201d battle. The four-second audio clip had families and friends in disbelief, unable to comprehend how anyone could hear anything different from what they heard. The great debate, as repetitive as it was, shed light on the misleading nature of audio perception. Now new&hellip;","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/sound-wave.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}