Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent

While reading silently, we often have the subjective experience of inner speech. However, there is currently little evidence regarding whether this inner voice resembles our own voice while we are speaking out loud. To investigate this issue, we compared reading behaviour of Northern and Southern En...

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Main Authors: Filik, Ruth, Barber, Emma
Format: Article
Published: Public Library of Science 2011
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2795/
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author Filik, Ruth
Barber, Emma
author_facet Filik, Ruth
Barber, Emma
author_sort Filik, Ruth
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description While reading silently, we often have the subjective experience of inner speech. However, there is currently little evidence regarding whether this inner voice resembles our own voice while we are speaking out loud. To investigate this issue, we compared reading behaviour of Northern and Southern English participants who have differing pronunciations for words like ‘glass’, in which the vowel duration is short in a Northern accent and long in a Southern accent. Participants' eye movements were monitored while they silently read limericks in which the end words of the first two lines (e.g., glass/class) would be pronounced differently by Northern and Southern participants. The final word of the limerick (e.g., mass/sparse) then either did or did not rhyme, depending on the reader's accent. Results showed disruption to eye movement behaviour when the final word did not rhyme, determined by the reader's accent, suggesting that inner speech resembles our own voice.
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spelling nottingham-27952020-05-04T16:31:27Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2795/ Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent Filik, Ruth Barber, Emma While reading silently, we often have the subjective experience of inner speech. However, there is currently little evidence regarding whether this inner voice resembles our own voice while we are speaking out loud. To investigate this issue, we compared reading behaviour of Northern and Southern English participants who have differing pronunciations for words like ‘glass’, in which the vowel duration is short in a Northern accent and long in a Southern accent. Participants' eye movements were monitored while they silently read limericks in which the end words of the first two lines (e.g., glass/class) would be pronounced differently by Northern and Southern participants. The final word of the limerick (e.g., mass/sparse) then either did or did not rhyme, depending on the reader's accent. Results showed disruption to eye movement behaviour when the final word did not rhyme, determined by the reader's accent, suggesting that inner speech resembles our own voice. Public Library of Science 2011-10-19 Article PeerReviewed Filik, Ruth and Barber, Emma (2011) Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent. PLoS ONE, 6 (10). e25782/1-e25782/5. ISSN 1932-6203 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025782 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025782 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025782
spellingShingle Filik, Ruth
Barber, Emma
Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title_full Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title_fullStr Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title_full_unstemmed Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title_short Inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
title_sort inner speech during silent reading reflects the reader's regional accent
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2795/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2795/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/2795/