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  • 11 - The P-Center Effect and the Domain of Beat Perception in Speech

  • from Section 2 - Acoustic and Sublexical Rhythms
  • Edited by Lars Meyer, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Antje Strauss, University of Konstanz
  • Book:
    Rhythms of Speech and Language
    Published online:
    23 April 2026
    Print publication:
    07 May 2026, pp 171-182
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  • Summary

    Much linguistic research into the perception of rhythmic structure in speech has been concerned with temporal domains that may show isochronous or at least somewhat regular timing. Early studies discovered that there is a substantial discrepancy between the physical and the subjectively perceived onsets of speech events such as words or syllables. Sequences of alternating speech units tend to be perceived as irregularly timed if the intervening pause duration is kept constant. This peculiarity of speech perception is commonly referred to as the perceptual center effect (or the P-center). Since its discovery, the effect has been defeating all quantification attempts as the P-center does not seem to consistently coincide with any specific acoustic markers of speech signals, though it is generally agreed that the P-center represents the rhythmic beat in speech. This chapter reviews existing evidence, outlines future directions, and discusses the domain of beat perception in spoken language.