Phase and coordination in speech production

Abstract

When trying to understand behavioral systems, the measurement of time as phase offers many advantages over conventional clock time. We illustrate this with some experimental results in speech production, in which stable coordinations are evident using phase measurements. These stable coordinations may be related to the abstract constituents posited by linguists, but they are manifest only in the performance of an embodied system. Tying time measurement to the physical system also reveals a large role for individual difference in coordinative structures in speech. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.