Dr Tamara Rathcke, senior lecturer in linguistics for the department of English Language and Linguistics, gave a talk at Macquarie University, Sydney, on Tuesday 17 September; and at The University of Sydney on Wednesday 16 October, titled ‘When language hits the beat: synchronising movement to simple tonal and verbal stimuli’.
Rhythmic perception-action coupling through sensorimotor synchronization has been studied with non-verbal, simple and complex auditory signals like a metronome and music. Applications of the paradigm to language are relatively rare, but could provide a valuable tool for investigating rhythm perception in speech. The aim of the present study is to compare sensorimotor synchronisation with simple non-verbal and verbal stimuli.
Tamara has also recently received a JSPS fellowship that she had applied for to spend two months at NINJAL, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics.